A Debt That Can't Be Repaid
by maniro
Summary: "Love is for children; I owe him debt." But maybe Natasha is simply in too deep.
1. Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer:** I own none of these characters and do not claim any possession._

_**AN:** So, this is my first fanfiction **ever**, and I am quite excited but please be gentle. Reviews and feedback are very welcome and much appreciated.  
_

_I will be operating in the movie-verse of the Avengers. I have not read the comics and only did some vague research for Natasha's past. I think that's all I'll use it for as the comics become very complicated later on._

_Also, the cover art belongs to lettiebobettie|tumblr, who so graciously let me borrow it for this purpose. Her art is amazing, not to mention her drop dead gorgeous Clintasha works._

_Thank you, and without further ado, enjoy.  
_

* * *

The life of a master assassin isn't an easy one. But I've come to prefer it. I get a free pass to leave emotions at home and not have to worry about anything except my own skin and the gun on my hip. Not relationships. Not affection. Not people. God, especially not people. Because caring about people… now _that's_ hard. I do without it, and it suits me just fine.

That is, it _used_ to suit me just fine. It suited me perfectly _before_ I met Clint Barton. Back when I was just a young girl without a care about anything in the world except getting my jobs done and over with. The fact I was doing these "jobs" at all only showed I didn't even care about my life. After all, not every little girl's first gift is a pistol and throwing knife instead of a dollhouse and fairy wand. Not every little girl begins to get sent out at the age of seven to kill people rather than to fetch the mail. I was different. And if I died...well, I was sure no one would miss me, and death seemed an almost enviable peace compared to the hell I had to deal with every day when I opened my eyes.

All I knew for sure about my childhood was that both my parents died in a fire. Apart from that, I have nothing left of my days before I was a killer except darkness and a few fuzzy memories left from the brainwashing the KGB gave me. I knew _now_ I'd been taken to a secret facility to be trained as an assassin, as a _Black Widow_, as they called us. Other than that… nothing. But I didn't like to think about it too long. Emptiness was all I found in the depths of my memory and it gave me a horrible sinking feeling, like being drowned in black water. It was this feeling that still woke me in the middle of the night, screaming and covered in a cold sweat.

And the only person who knew it did was Clint, who'd woken up many a time to cradle me in his arms until the hysterics subsided.

* * *

The first time I saw him, he'd looked into the eyes of a young girl still only the tender age of seventeen. However, that didn't mean _I _was tender. I was a flawless gymnast, a precise martial artist, a prodigious killer. I was well-versed in the language of weapons, including the ones my own body had to offer. And I knew how to use that body to get what I wanted. I was a force. By that time, I'd killed enough people to fill my own cemetery, and it was this that had given me enough attention to be targeted. I "needed to be stopped." That's where Clint came in; he'd been dispatched to get rid of the dangerous Russian girl who'd been making a mess in Europe. He'd been twenty at the time.

How he managed disarm me that night is still a mystery to me. I've never been one to make mistakes, yet somehow, after I'd broken his bow, thrown all my knifes, shot all my bullets, and we'd tousled hand-to-hand for what felt like years, I'd drawn my pistol, my last weapon, and he'd fluidly kicked it out of my hand and across the room. I remembered watching it skitter across the floor away from me, taking my life with it. I was cornered and weaponless. He'd have a perfect clean kill.

So I turned back to him, straightened my ripped, blood-spattered dress, pushed back my shoulders and lifted my chin, and looked down the barrel of his gun into the face of Death without fear. I met his brown eyes defiantly. They'd been cold and measured, but not cruel.

We stood like that for what seemed to me a long time, his gun always perfectly poised between my eyes. I wondered if he was waiting for me try to run or to close my eyes or something, but I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of either. I was just about to tell him to get it over with if he was man enough when he began slowly lowering the gun. I watched its progression, uncharacteristically dumbstruck in that moment, all the way until it hung loosely by his side.

"I'm not going to kill you," he told me in somewhat broken Russian, slowly placing the gun at his feet, and raising his hands in the universal symbol of surrender.

"Why?" I growled to him in flawless English. Something about speaking Russian with him seemed too personal. He did seem relieved when I spoke English, and I had the feeling he'd only learned a few necessary phrases for the occasion.

He shook his head. "I… I don't know…" he finally replied after seeming to search within himself for quite a long time. "You're so young," he whispered, as if to himself.

"So are you!" I hissed, my seventeen-year-old temper flaring defensively. He shook his head again, signaling he'd meant no harm by the statement. And though I was stunned by his sudden decision to not kill me, my instincts screamed not to let my guard down.

"So, then what do you want with me?" I asked, my hands still pressed firmly to the wall behind me. It seemed the only real thing in the world. The wall was firm and solid and _real_ in a suddenly confusing and indistinct world where people sent to kill you suddenly lowered their guns and showed mercy. He swallowed, his eyes flicking around as if he hoped the answer would descend from the creaky rafters of the warehouse we were in. He'd been preparing to ambush me outside of a dinner party where I'd been doing some reconnaissance work, but when I realized I was being tailed, I had quickly found my way to the lonely part of the city filled with warehouses where I had planned to do off with him quietly. I hadn't bargained he'd be the one to have me pinned against a wall with my life dangling dauntingly between us.

I let my eyes drift to my still loaded gun, lying on the floor not ten feet away. Whatever he might say, he was still the enemy, and if he was willing to let _his_ guard down, well, that just made an easier kill for me. And shame on him for being so appallingly stupid.

"Come with me," he said suddenly, making my eyes snap back to him.

"What?" I said, genuinely surprised.

"Look, there's no doubt you're good. I've never seen anyone as tiny as you fight like that," he said, ignoring the growl I let slip when he called me tiny. At seventeen, I'd already begun to grow into my body, but I was still skinny, even if I was all muscle. I must have seemed especially puny to him, though, who already towered over me and had plenty of rippling muscle beneath his luxuriously tanned skin. "We could use someone like you. You don't have to be this."

"_This _is all I am. I wouldn't be any different with _you._ The same killer just playing the game for another killer," I spat. My eyes flicked again to my gun.

"At least we know what we fight for. No one comes and steals our memories in the middle of the night," he said fiercely, a trace of what seemed to be his American pride flaring up. I sniffed disdainfully. But deep within me, I faltered. Because he'd hit a very tender spot. Truthfully, I'd already begun to notice the disconcerting and unexplainable gaps in my memory and hidden in the depths of my mind—deep, deep down where no one could possibly read the traitorous thoughts except me—I'd been harboring some resentful doubts and suspicions for the agency I worked for. And though I'd tell no one at the time, the deepest desire of that young heart was simply to know the truth of my own past.

"Fine, I'll break it down even easier for you, _Natalia Romanova,_" he began again, obviously taking my silence as a continued refusal. I growled at him, startled at his use of my actual name. Natasha Romanoff had slowly stemmed off from it and become a sort of alias, my real name so unused that it seemed all but forgotten. I liked to think it was my personal little secret with myself; a way to keep a hold on the real me, something no one could take away. "That's right. I know things," he continued, not missing the expression of shock in my wide eyes. "We have the answers you want."

I bit the inside of my cheek, my eyes narrowing. He was trying to bait me, I was sure of it. But why, when he could have already killed me so easily with the gun that even now lay at his feet?

"Or look at it this way..." he shrugged, expertly flicking the gun back into his hand with the tip of his boot and training it back on my forehead in a split second. "Join... or die."

My proud tongue ached to lash out and tell him I'd sooner drive a bullet through my own head, but my curiosity burned and stilled my pride. We stood, eyes locked, for what could have been another minute or hour or year. I couldn't be sure, but finally, almost unwillingly, my lips moved and I said, "I will go with you."

And that was that. He dropped his fierce exterior almost as if it melted off him, his shoulders unstiffening, his arms relaxing, the gun still in his hand, but now hanging at his side rather than pointed at my face. He motioned for me to move towards the stairs to go below, but at first we both moved awkwardly around each other with the residual instinct of two people who had sworn to never give their back to the other. Finally, he sighed exasperatedly and turned me none too gently toward the stairs. And I twisted his arm, reacting instinctively to his sudden movement toward me.

"Easy," he said, pulling the gun out without hesitation and motioning for me to turn back around with it. I sneered. Obviously the fact I was going with him hadn't made us best friends. Which was practical, in all honesty. Maybe he wasn't entirely stupid after all. I swallowed my pride and instinct and trudged down the stairs though my back itched on having been turned to him and my eyes begged to keep him in sight at all times. Halfway down the wobbly staircase, he gripped my wrist and again turned me around suddenly. I reacted and readied myself to kick him away from me, but he had me pinned to the wall in less than a moment. I writhed beneath him, torn between outrage and actual fear because I still hadn't been able to think of a logical reason why he might have kept me alive except that he might be some freak that got off on giving slow, painful deaths to his victims and that was what he planned to do now. Never once did I consider he really only intended what he had already told me.

Only when I saw him pull a pair of handcuffs from his belt did I realize what he was doing, but I writhed harder than ever because I'd sooner chew off my hands than submit myself to that. Apart from how vulnerable it rendered me, my pride would sting with humiliation. I was a master assassin. I didn't belong in _anyone's_ handcuffs. He shushed me impatiently, rolling his eyes in my face as he pressed me to the wall with all his weight and easily clicked the first handcuff around my small wrist.

"You didn't think I was just going to blindly trust you, give you hot chocolate, and cuddle with you all the way to America, did you? I saw you eyeing that gun," he said matter-of-factly, shifting his weight to get the other hand. Okay. So he definitely wasn't stupid. Here I'd been thinking that my furtive glances had gone right over his head. And the fact I'd failed to notice he'd seen made _me_ feel stupid. And I hated him for it. I heard the second handcuff lock with a resolute little click. He stepped away from me then, leaving me coughing as my lungs expanded for air.

"Bastard," was the only thing I managed to gasp in between coughs that had me doubled over against the wall. He didn't seem the least bit remorseful and actually leaned forward to look into my face with an amused grin that I yearned to slap right off him.

"It's Clint, actually. _Pleasure_."


	2. Chapter 2

_**Same disclaimers as chapter 1.**_

**AN: **_Thank you to everyone who read the first chapter and favorited and followed and all that good stuff. Means a ton. I've actually had this chapter written for quite a few days but my computer decided to be a douchebag at that precise moment in time and I had to wait to publish until now. Anyway, this is a bit of a longer chapter, getting ready to really start the ball rolling. Clint isn't the star in this chapter, but I promise he'll be making a comeback very soon. Enjoy!_

* * *

The first thing I learned about this Clint fellow—whose last name was still a mystery to me—was that he was a liar. And I wasn't sure how I felt about that given what he'd lied about was giving me hot chocolate. Sure, he kept true on his promise not to hold my hand and cuddle with me, but once he'd settled me in a luxurious seat in some private jet his agency had provided, the first thing he'd done was offer me a large mug of hot chocolate with a toothy grin.

_Poison_, was the first thought that popped into my mind when he shoved the warm mug into my manacled hands. Clint seemed to read my mind immediately.

"For the last time, I'm not trying to kill you. See?" he insisted, taking a sip from the mug himself and smacking his lips with the thick chocolate. Nonetheless, I put the mug on a small side table grudgingly, refusing to accept any offers from him in a manner not unlike that of a child throwing a tantrum. Even taking the hot chocolate felt like a showing of weakness, like submitting myself to a debt in his name.

He took a seat across from me, watching me with annoying attentiveness over his own mug of hot chocolate. I refused to rise to his bait. I didn't want to talk to him. I didn't want to see him. I didn't want his stupid chocolate even if my stomach _had_ grumbled yearningly at the sweet smell. So I tucked my feet under me on the seat and glared out the window resolutely, simply ignoring his presence. He obviously got the hint.

"Fine, whatever," he said with a huff, taking his mug and moving towards the back of the plane where I suspected there to be a bedroom. Despite my better judgment, I couldn't help looking up as he departed, watching him furtively. And though I hated to admit it to myself, he was a fine specimen, and my hungry seventeen-year-old hormones pined appreciatively for him. He was taller than me by a good bit but I could tell that was as tall as he'd get. He had a full crop of thick sandy hair though it was cut short. He was an elegant work of smooth, swooping lines; the curve of his shoulders, the definition of his back, the shading of his arms. And I actually forced myself to look away when my eyes slowly drifted down to rest on his delicious butt and heat rushed up to my pale cheeks. I stared angrily at my hands, annoyed at my own reaction. So I decided to overlook my chagrin and simply hate _him_ for it. That was a lot easier. My eyes roved over to the chocolate and I decided to hate that, too. Damn all of him to hell.

I looked out the small plane window at a fluffy sea of rolling clouds, shining silver in the moonlight and only then noticed how tired I was. My eyelids drooped, but falling asleep on a plane with people I didn't know—or people period, really—felt like offering myself up on a silver platter.

_Stop it, Nat. He could've killed you ten times over already,_ a more logical part of my mind told me soothingly. But another, seemingly larger and stronger part of me told me that was just the sleep talking and I scolded myself for my own weakness. So I leaned my forehead against the cold glass of the window and kept my eyelids resolutely up. And I never realized I fell asleep until I woke up suddenly some time later, confused, disoriented, and with a nasty crick in my neck to show for my pitiful sleeping position. But I still wasn't dead, much to my continuous surprise.

I went through this pattern of uneasy sleep and sudden awakening various times throughout what remained of the flight. At one point I woke up to find the hot chocolate reheated and now accompanied by cookies, which I could no longer help to devour, because even my pride was stumped when my primal needs took hold of me. But even more surprising was realizing my wrists were no longer cuffed when I reached for the chocolate with both hands only to find they were no longer bound. I rubbed my wrists wondrously as I glanced toward the silent bedroom I'd last seen Clint disappear to. The plane was still as quiet as if I'd been the only one on it—which suddenly made me think I probably _was_ the only one on it and Clint had abandoned the plane and left it to crash with me in it and make it look like an accident and I had to stop it or I'd be doomed and I was surely already seconds away from plummeting into the ocean or into a mountain or into a volcano—until I told myself to shut the fuck up and eat my damn cookies because I was just paranoid again and determined to find death traps for myself in everything. So I did stop, finished all the food that had been laid out for me, and had to admit that if it was poisoned, they did a very good job of hiding the taste, because everything was delicious. With another wary glance around me—and a cautious look out the window to make sure the plane _wasn't_ taking me into sure death—I fell back asleep right after, my freshly fed stomach keeping me so for a few good hours until—

"Fuck!"

I awoke with a start, a thick knitted blanket suddenly falling off my shoulders as I sat up suddenly. I looked at it, confused, until I realized Clint must have put it on me at some point. I pushed it off hastily, wanting to retch because I still wasn't ready to be grateful for anything to him. Much less cute stuff like hot chocolate and blankets.

The door to the small bedroom at the back of the plane flew open with a loud bang and Clint came striding out looking particularly incensed, seeming to end a call he'd just been having on a small cell phone with a few furious jabs of his fingers.

"Oh, you're up," he said, his face softening slightly, though his voice remained distant. "We're landing soon."

"Where?" I asked, my voice still rough with sleep and disuse.

"SHIELD. The agency I work for. Sorry, I have to put these back on you," he said warily as he pulled the cuffs out again. I bit back the snarl that had initially threatened to rip out of me. "My boss isn't particularly thrilled that you aren't dead—no offense—much less that I brought you back with me," he said quietly, actually managing a small apologetic smile as he held up the cuffs between us, as if for my inspection. If I'd been any sort of normal person, this probably would have been the part where I smiled at him to tell him it was okay or something, but I wasn't, so I did nothing and said nothing, trying to decide how to react to knowing he'd broken rules and disobeyed orders to keep me alive. Because those weren't the things you did lightly as a hired assassin, no matter who you worked for. And it seemed enticingly easy to just hate him for that too, because the other option was being grateful and digging myself deeper and deeper in his debt. But maybe it was the assassin in myself that knew he deserved the latter because I understood the gravity of what he'd done for me. So I offered my wrists for him to cuff silently, hoping he understood without words because saying it would surely kill me. But I knew he did understand, from one assassin to another, when my green eyes met his brown ones and he gently locked the chains back on without breaking my gaze.

* * *

He ushered me off the plane and into an elevator that seemed to dip light years below the earth's surface before it slowed and expelled us into what seemed to be an enormous bustling atrium, filled with hundreds of people clad either in smart-looking suits or mission gear. And much to my relief, no one stopped to stare at us.

"Follow me," Clint said quietly, taking the lead, and again I couldn't help feeling grateful he'd at least allowed me the small decency of walking without him holding my hands behind my back like a criminal. We came into what looked like a large control room, people sitting at computers everywhere and several large screens at the front of the room showing maps and coordinates and live feeds I didn't care to understand at the moment because I was too intent on staying close to Clint. I had the feeling the moment he disappeared, these people wouldn't offer me the same mercy he had.

"I'm here, Phil," he called out, his voice calm and measured. A man in one of those sharp suits turned, clicking at an earpiece he had on. He was older than Clint, maybe double his age, carrying himself with the authority his obvious seniority gave him. And though his expression was detached and somber, there was something almost comfortingly kind about his disposition. His eyes skipped immediately over Clint and found their way to me as if he'd been expecting me—which I guessed he probably had, as nothing seemed to get by them—and gave me a calculating look.

"What have you done now, Clint?" he said, his eyes finally meeting Clint and looking almost sorry for him. I stood awkwardly aside, feeling increasingly tiny and vulnerable in a room filled with armed agents I'm sure could kill me before I had the chance to blink one more time. One-on-one, my ego liked to think I could take any of them, but at the moment, I was standing in the middle of their beehive, cuffed and defenseless. The feeling was foreign to me and I did _not _enjoy it. As if they could suddenly sense the foreign intrusion in their midst, several agents began to turn and cast me furtive glances, some cold, some only curious, but some completely unforgiving.

"Well, whatever it is, you've said it: it's _done_. I'm prepared to take responsibility for it," Clint responded in a measured voice.

"BARTON!" a voice boomed behind us just as Clint finished his statement. Phil raised an eyebrow.

"Well, here's your chance," he muttered to Clint. We both turned to face a tall dark man in a long black coat and eye patch, something in my mind casually taking note of Clint's last name and feeling a vindictive pleasure at now being even on the basis of names despite the circumstances. The man's one eye roved over me quickly before turning to glare murderously at Clint.

"My office. _Now,_" he said dangerously. "Phil, handle her," he added almost as an afterthought with a vague gesture in my direction before turning without another word. I swallowed. So, this was the end, then. I'd flown all this way with a stranger just to get "handled" by Phil. I wondered idly if there was a room specifically for "handling." Would it be fast? Would they torture me for information? Would Phil shoot me? Decapitate me? What would happen to my body? Would I get a last meal? Because I hadn't eaten anything except cookies for more than a day and frankly wouldn't turn down a nice plate of potato pancakes just then.

_Control yourself, Natalia. Remember who you are,_ a voice in my head said warningly, centering my focus. Right. I wasn't some weak-kneed teenage girl who fled at the first sight of danger. I lived in danger—I _was_ danger. I was a killer, and I was good at it. I calmed my thoughts, returning to my level head. If I was going to die, the last these agents would see of me would be my nose in the air, if not a pair of middle fingers to match. Fuck them all! I again assumed the air I'd taken when I'd been prepared for Clint to shoot me, like I feared nothing in that room except their stupid taste in suits.

"That's it, Romanoff, head up. I'll see you in a bit," Clint leaned over to whisper to me, almost in a conspiratorial fashion, and giving my cheek a quick tweak before I had the chance to react, though he effectively shattered my focus and I was back to being nothing more than a simple-minded girl fighting hard against nothing other than a rising blush. I didn't even have time to fume at him—or break his fingers or something—before I realized he was already walking away well beyond my reach and I was falling farther and farther behind the safety of his.

* * *

I didn't "see him in a bit." That bastard, Clint Barton, was definitely a liar. First it'd been the hot chocolate, now this. I didn't see hide nor hair of him in the three long weeks that followed while I was kept in custody for questioning and surveillance. After Clint had departed, Phil had called another agent, a young Maria Hill that didn't appear any older than me, to escort me to a holding chamber. I'd regarded her with contempt as she'd approached, my mind already thinking I could snap her neck easily and maybe have a chance to sneak out of this God-forsaken place. And I noticed with immense satisfaction that she approached me with caution and the most subtle nervous glint in her eyes. I remembered then I had a rep with these people and held my chin just a little bit higher.

But I noted with disappointment as she drew up to me that though her face conveyed youth and her body was slim, she was taller than me and no less stronger. She took the time to put my hands behind my back the way I'm sure they thought I belonged and _did_ walk behind me while restraining my arms with a firm grip. She walked me around a good deal and took me through several elevators before she finally deposited me into a simple holding cell with only one door and a small cot.

I expected to be visited by Clint to be informed on what was going on outside of my cell where I saw no one except the million and one interrogators that kept asking me all the same questions again and again, but I waited in vain. I tried to be as cooperative as possible in the beginning, hoping to make a good impression and let them know I'd come with honest intentions, until their repetitive questions and refusal to answer any questions of mine reduced me to snapping out sarcastic answers or simply telling them to fuck themselves. Apart from the questioners, the only other person I saw was Maria Hill who came in to give me my meals and sat outside my door all hours of the day and night with her clipboard clutched to her chest, bending down every so often to scribble something down.

I tried to ask her for Clint once when she'd been in to deliver my breakfast, but she'd only shaken her head, signaling she wasn't allowed to speak to me. I'd groaned and turned away from her on my cot, my sight blurring with frustration. I was going to die in this stupid cell, I was sure of it. And I began to resent them for not simply killing me off in the first place. I was tired of their stupid games.

Three weeks later, I'd just been putting the finishing touches on my mental escape plan, prepared to get out of here or _finally_ die trying, when Phil finally came in to see me, entering my cell with Maria on his heel.

"Miss Romanoff, I'm Agent Phil Coulson, and I'm here to offer you a deal," he'd said, capturing enough of my attention to get me to roll over on my cot and look at him. I gave him a shrewd look as I sat up, beyond the point of any more mind games.

"What kind of deal?" I asked, my voice betraying more of the fatigue I felt than I liked.

"If you're willing, SHIELD would like to offer you a position within our ranks. With some negotiations, of course... We've been informed you might be interested in what is in this file," he said slowly, taking a large manila folder from Maria and holding it up for me to see my own name printed on it as clear as day. "If whatever you want to know isn't in here, it isn't anywhere," he said with the slightest hint of pride. I rolled my eyes.

"What kind of negotiations?" I asked, trying to keep my voice steady because this was more than I had even bothered to hope for anymore. I hadn't been planning to leave this room with my life, much less my past. We talked for hours while Coulson named all their conditions and I scoffed indignantly at the vast majority of them, especially the one about attending agent training. Perhaps it was the fact that the thick manila folder lay on his lap the entire time, however, that made me more willing to reason. Finally, after I'd agreed to swear my new loyalty, attend training, and submit to surveillance during a certain period of time, I walked out of the cell without handcuffs, with my life, and with the folder clutched to my chest.

And the moment I stepped out, Maria actually shot a small smile in my direction which I returned with a blank look, sure she'd meant it for someone behind me. I didn't want to check. She escorted me to my new room in the agent dorm quarters, and this time, I received more than a few curious glances. People actually stopped what they were doing to watch my progression and whisper to each other. I could only imagine the rumors that had been flying around during my captivity.

Maria showed me into a small room with blank walls that was supposed to be my new "home." It wasn't anything special, with only a bed, a dresser, a bathroom, and a small television, but when I'd caught glimpses through the doors other agents had swung open eagerly to catch a look at me on my way here, I'd seen many had taken the liberty of customizing their rooms with posters, pictures, and their possessions, making each room look like an individual apartment. But I had nothing to my name _except_ my name, so my room remained empty.

"I'm Maria Hill, by the way," she'd said to me with her hand outstretched when I'd slumped down on the edge of the bed and looked down at my shoes. I'd stared from her hand to her eyes until she slowly let it drop. I had half a mind to take the gun strapped to her thigh and make a run for it, but I suddenly found myself too unbearably tired to even stand up. "You know, if this is gonna work—this whole you joining us and us not killing you thing—you're gonna have to try. We're supposed to be like a family. Agents are supposed watch out for one another," she said quietly, almost sadly, before leaving and closing the door behind her. I found the strength to get up and lock the door before falling back onto the bed, holding the manila folder gingerly in front of me.

I stayed up all hours of the night reading the file. About my parents' death. My being kidnapped as child to be turned into a Black Widow. Being _brainwashed_. I read the word over and over, to the point where it hardly made sense anymore. Sudden memories of dark rooms and strange voices in my ears came back to me. Memories I had previously regarded as nothing more than bad dreams suddenly made sense. Bad dreams turned startling reality. Flickering lights and haunting chants, reality dumped out and violent ideas of life and pride and responsibility and duty pushed in. A child being untied at the seams, a killer being born from the rags. A person unmade and recreated by design.

I suddenly felt tainted, like a stranger in my own body, like I had no idea who I was. I had no idea what was me and what had been twisted and warped into my brain until I believed it was me. I put the folder away gingerly, no longer wanting to touch or even look at it. I curled up on the bed and for the first time in years, I cried. The tears seemed to burn their way out of me, tying my throat and stinging my eyes, and refused to stop streaming because I was really only a girl who'd had her life turned upside down in a very short amount of time and no matter what I told anyone, I was terrified. I was a ghost. An empty shell filled with someone else's ideals.

But it had to stop. I felt a burning hatred for my previous leaders, a fiery need to avenge the little girl Natalia Romanova could have been. Because she had been killed, and they were to blame. Her murderers would fall to their knees if it was the last thing I ever did. So that night, as the uneasy hiccups bounced me into a fretful sleep, I reinvented _myself_. That night, I chose my own path. That night, I belonged to no one besides myself. That night, I was _reborn_.

* * *

Nick Fury wasted no time in waking me up early the next morning to introduce himself as the director of SHIELD and to tell me my lessons started immediately. He pushed the standard gear for apprentice agents, identical to the ones Maria wore, into my arms and told me to watch where I stepped because I was on very thin ice. I couldn't muster the energy to complain or make a biting remark, instead taking the suit silently and resigning myself to hell.

* * *

I hated "school" most of all. The idea of studying and learning things I already considered myself an expert in was infuriating. And I hated having to do it with the mass of other apprentice agents that all followed my progress either with looks of apprehension, contempt, or a mixture of both. I got Coulson to drop some years from my sentence when I proved my aptitude in a variety of fields, like combat and weaponry, but I wasn't free from it completely, and had to settle with being bumped up into Maria Hill's class, students my age who hated me all the more for it because they'd been studying for an additional four years before I arrived. I couldn't bring myself to care, deciding if they hated me, I hated them too. I spent my first couple of months alone and being anti-social, deciding I needed to time with myself anyway. To figure out who I was and who I wanted to be. But Maria and I ended up gravitating towards each other, after all. Her intelligence and prodigious skill in organizing and managing had gained her some favor with her superiors and made her something like an assistant to Coulson, though other envious agents in our class labeled her his "pet." She was shunned by other students, scorned for her good standing, and we found ourselves spending more and more time together: partnered for exercises when we were left unchosen, helping each other when everyone else ignored us, sitting at opposite ends of the same empty lunch table until we slowly began scooting toward each other, meeting in the middle and finally allowing each other shy smiles.

I found her to actually be quite interesting, bursting with information no one else wanted to hear from her. She was thoughtful and good-natured, with a kind face only made stern by her intense focus. She knew a good bit of gossip about ongoings in the higher rungs of SHIELD that she learned from trailing Coulson, and when I finally permitted myself to ask her about Clint Barton, she eagerly revealed all the information she told me she'd been aching to tell me the time I'd asked for him while I'd been in captivity but she'd been sworn to silence.

"Got hell for it, I heard," Maria said quietly to me over lunch a few months after my arrival. Something about mentioning him made me feel guilty for acknowledging I cared at all about someone who hadn't bothered so much as to ask me if I was okay once since I'd been taken on as an apprentice agent. "I overheard some older agents talking about him when I was running some errands for Coulson. They said Fury nearly broke his neck right there in his office when you guys arrived. But apparently he said he didn't regret it, and you shouldn't be killed because you were young and obviously didn't know who you were working for."

I listened thoughtfully, confused by the sudden tightening in my chest.

"Fury practically banished him to some mission in the middle of nowhere," Maria finished, idly pushing around her broccoli with her fork.

"Is he still there?" I tried to ask in an offhanded manner. Maria's eyebrows furrowed slightly in thought.

"No, I heard he came back rather quickly, actually, much to Fury's annoyance who'd been hoping to keep him away for months. I haven't seen him around, though," Maria answered. I only nodded, deciding there really _wasn't_ any excuse for him refusing to find me and resolving not to ask for him again.

I found myself much comforted by Maria, however, who kept me quite focused and even entertained. We'd taken to calling each other the nicknames the rest of our class had given us—"Pet" for her and "KGB" for me—comforted by our acknowledgment of their ridiculousness simply by accepting them, and annoying everyone else when they realized our own amusement at them. She almost made life feel normal, despite the fact we were studying together for a secret agency to be assassins. She snuck choice food into our rooms late at night, offered gossip and advice, and even backed me up in a fight one time when I'd defended her from a snooty agent in our class that had never liked us and had let slip one too many snide remarks. I'd been cleaning up her busted lip in Coulson's office, laughing even as we sat there waiting for Phil to arrive and announce our punishment, when I idly thought that this must be what it was like to have a friend.

* * *

My vivid red curls had grown long enough to reach the middle of my back three years later as Maria and I stood side by side at our class's "graduation." There were no caps or gowns; instead, we were all dressed in full gear, and of course, carrying our weapons of choice. Even though that was something we did every day no matter where we went around the facility. Except for me, as I was still on "parole." But they had allowed me to carry my choice weapon—tiny missile-like energy blasters carried on the wrists like bracelets that I had grown quite fond of during training—even if the cartridges were empty of power. It was the principle of the thing.

The class stood in a line facing a small stage, our instructors, superiors, and SHIELD officials seated behind us as we watched one apprentice after another go up to take their oaths before Fury and Coulson, have themselves pronounced Agents, and return to their place in line.

"Maybe we'll get lucky and Demetra won't come back from her first mission," Maria whispered to me out of the corner of her mouth as the girl we'd fought three years ago raised her hand and began chanting the oath we'd all been memorizing for years. I snorted, elbowing Maria to be quiet. Older agents were able to offer graduating apprentice agents to accompany them for their first field missions. If you had no offers, you simply had to wait until you were assigned one, because you needed to be mentored on a certain number of missions before going out on your own. Demetra had gotten an offer and had proceeded to gloat loudly about it for months before the graduation, particularly around Maria and I. Maria was being kept on the facility to be trained as a junior director under Coulson's tutelage, which I thought would benefit her in the end when she got to order everyone else around, but was still looked down upon by young agents who only wanted to go out and get in the thick of things. And I, of course, hadn't been offered a single thing, not for lack of talent, but because I was still widely considered the KGB girl that shouldn't be here and couldn't be trusted. So I was being given more reconnaissance work and practice missions like everyone else who wasn't being mentored. Our instructors who had stressed the importance of every job had always told us that there was always reconnaissance work to be done. But all the students always joked that that didn't mean anyone wanted to do it.

"Natasha Romanoff," Coulson finally called my name. I took a breath and walked around and up onto the stage, meeting Coulson's eyes. Today, he had the air of a father watching all his babies graduating. He looked at me kindly. He was one of the few people that hadn't treated me differently because of how I got here, though that could partially be attributed to how much he favored Maria and how often he saw us together. And Fury, he was the same detached but fair person to everyone, and he didn't withhold that from me either.

I recited the oath flawlessly, feeling liberated by the honesty with which I said it. Because though my seventeen-year-old self couldn't have understood it, it _was_ different here. I had the same job, but I felt the weight and responsibility of fighting for something worthwhile. And I didn't feel like a shell anymore. I was filled with a purpose. I turned to face the crowd as was custom when coming to the end of the oath, a symbolic way of saying this promise was not only for SHIELD, but for everyone, for anyone that needed us.

"Welcome to SHIELD, _Agent_ Natasha Romanoff."


	3. Chapter 3

_**Same disclaimers from chapter 1.**_

_**AN: **Thank you again to everyone who followed and especially to those of you who reviewed. Hugs and kisses to you all. Nothing gets me writing more than your encouraging reviews.  
_

_To "Blah", who brought up the issue of age in the last chapter, when that part is mentioned, I actually meant it as her 20-y.o. self reflecting on her 17-y.o. self. Sorry for the misunderstanding. My fault._

_Without further ado, enjoy!  
_

* * *

A few more people went up after me and after a few final words for Fury, the ceremony broke up with a short round of applause, graduates moving about to shake hands with our instructors and superiors before heading immediately back to work, because the life of an agent stopped for no one. A few people that were being mentored were actually leaving for said missions directly after the graduation.

As Maria and I had no immediate engagements, we moved about the crowd slowly to congratulate and thank the people in attendance until Maria pulled me into a lonely corner of the room away from the crowd.

"I have a graduating gift for you!" she said excitedly. I grimaced. For one, I hated taking gifts. And I hadn't thought to get anything for Maria.

"Maria, I thought we agreed no gifts. I didn't get you any—"

"No, shut up, Natasha. I might not see you as often as I'm used to anymore, and I want you to have something," she said quietly, pulling a small box from one of her back pockets. She handed it to me and I opened it gingerly. Inside there was what seemed to be coils of thin leather. I pulled it out from one end and it unraveled, proving it was some type of belt. I looked up at Maria questioningly and she reached down to show me the clasp. It was a small rectangle with what appeared to be a red shape like an angular hourglass on a black background. I stared at it uncomprehendingly for a moment before suddenly realizing what it was meant to be. The red marking found on the abdomen of black widow spiders.

I let go of the belt as if it had burned me. Maria seemed to have expected this reaction and regarded me with patience before saying, "I know what you're thinking, Nat. But I thought maybe this could be your _thing._"

"Things" were the little signatures that came to characterize each agent. For most, it was their aliases, like I'd learned Hawkeye to be for Clint Barton for his flawless aim. For others, it was things like their favorite weapons or their areas of expertise.

"Maria, I'm trying to prove I'm not that person anymore. I already get death threats from people who don't want me here, I don't think people—"

"Since when do you care what people think, Natasha?"

"Since I stopped being able to shoot anyone who looked at me sideways," I muttered, rolling my eyes. Maria ignored that.

"Don't be ashamed of where you come from, Nat. Be proud of how far you've come," she said quietly and with an immense tenderness that actually surprised me. I sighed, taking the belt buckle in my hand and running my thumb over the glossy surface.

"You're right," I finally murmured, and then with an encouraging smile, "You always are." I lifted my arms and Maria grinned, understanding my invitation to put the belt on me. How she managed to sneak my measurements, she never told me, but it fit me perfectly. It didn't hug my hips like the rest of the belts I wore; instead it cinched in my waist, with the buckle lying directly on top of my navel. But I was glad for it then, glad it was perfectly easy to see and not hidden beneath the numerous straps of the utility and weapon belts agents wore. Maria was right; this was something to be proud of, a token of my struggle.

Phil Coulson suddenly came bustling toward us through the crowd. "Agent Hill, I'm going to need you in the board room in some five minutes to take notes on a meeting and—shouldn't you be getting ready or something, Agent Romanoff?"

"I have no immediate missions, sir," I said, slightly abashed as I said it. I was a fighter and had been within the concrete walls of the facility far too long for my liking. We'd been sent out on plenty of missions for practice, but never for anything serious, and I was as anxious as anyone to go out and finally do something. "I was not given any offers."

"Oh, except you were, Miss—I'm sorry—_Agent _Romanoff," said a voice behind me that sent a thrill down my spine though I didn't initially know why. I turned to see a lean, well-muscled figure striding toward me. His hair was the exact sandy shade I remembered, though it was slightly longer now, his eyes the precise chocolate color from my memory. He hadn't grown much, as I'd suspected, though I noticed with satisfaction I obviously had, as I was now level with his shoulders. And he wore the same gear I'd first seen him in, from the hand and forearm archery guards to the sleeveless vest that so favored his sinfully distracting muscled arms.

Clint Barton, at _long_ last.

"I beg your pardon?" I tried to say disdainfully, though the effect was somewhat ruined by the sudden breathlessness of my voice.

"Yes, that's right. Barton made arrangements early this morning. I'll leave him to explain, as Agent Hill and I are needed urgently elsewhere. And congratulations again, Agent Romanoff," Coulson explained hurriedly before signaling for Maria to follow him out of the room. She hugged me quickly with the pretext of a last congratulation but gave me a significant look before she left. I'd never explicitly told her of my childish fixation with knowing whatever happened to Clint after he'd dropped me off at SHIELD and was never seen again, though I had a theory she'd guessed at it. A theory now confirmed by the look she gave me before hurrying away.

I gulped suddenly at being left with him, and hoped desperately it hadn't been as loud as it'd felt.

"Your hair's long," was the first thing he said, his eyes running over me appraisingly. And I didn't think it was my imagination that saw something akin to hunger in his eyes. After all, I was no longer a wiry seventeen-year-old. The amount of baby fat—no matter how infinitesimal it'd already been—had shed off my face completely, my bust had filled out, my hips had swelled attractively, my legs had lengthened, and my waist had whittled. I was altogether a woman.

"Yeah, that tends to happen when you let it grow out for _three years_," I hissed, the accusation clear in my voice. I saw his jaw tighten. He'd known full well this had been coming.

"Look, about that, I—"

"I don't care!" I cut him off coldly in a desperate attempt to cover how much I actually did care. I expected, actually _wanted_ for him to continue, for him to beg me to listen and forgive him. But I watched with dismay that I effectively shut him up and he closed his mouth in a particularly dejected manner. I groaned inwardly, torn between wanting to shout at him or myself.

"Well, either way, I'm your only ticket out of here at the moment," he smirked, and I could tell he was trying to recapture his usual air of amused nonchalance. "Or, you know, you could stay and do… I don't know… what _do_ agents do around here?" he said with an infuriatingly superior tone. I rolled my eyes. It always seemed to be a matter of choosing between pride and curiosity with him.

"_Fine_. But stop talking to me," I said coldly.

"As you wish, _Agent_," he said with a ridiculous bow.

"Ugh, and stop saying agent like that," I said, crossing my arms and looking anywhere but at him. He looked up from his bow with a grin.

"Sorry. It's a habit when talking to new graduates. You'll do it one day, too, see if you don't," he said. He eyed me again as he pulled out of his bow. "And does this pretty new agent have a codename yet?" he asked.

I didn't, officially, but I didn't want to reinforce the idea of how inexperienced I obviously was even more than he already thought, so I nodded proudly.

"Yes, I do, _Hawkeye_," I said pointedly, hoping to further discourage the idea of my being unqualified and amateur by proving I was well-informed. If I did, he showed no outward sign of being any degree of impressed. Instead, he merely lifted an eyebrow.

"Well?"

"Oh, right, it's—" I faltered slightly, trying to think on my toes, but with a lingering thought of Maria still with me, the answer rose to my lips readily, as if I'd been waiting to give this precise answer to this precise question at this precise moment my entire life. "Black Widow."

His eyebrows lifted even higher, and his eyes seemed to finally register my new belt and the significance of the red symbol hugging my midriff. "Interesting choice…" he muttered.

I lifted my chin imperiously, prepared to hear him tell me it was a bad idea or unwise and should probably be rethought when he said suddenly "I like it," with finality. I stared at him, somehow even angrier at his approval than I would have been at his scorn. It was ridiculous and childish, I knew, but I had this insatiable need to simply disagree with him on anything and everything.

"It's fitting," he said as he walked around me toward the room's exit. I turned and rushed behind him, incensed.

"Fitting? Fitting how? How would you even know?" I said heatedly. He only grinned, and I fell into step behind him with my arms crossed, angry at myself for taking his bait. I shouldn't care what he thought, anyway. I _didn't_ care what he thought, I mentally corrected myself quickly. He was still the asshole that had disappeared off the face of the earth for three years without so much as a whisper of explanation, and I'd be damned if I didn't bring him to his knees, begging for my forgiveness, before I even paused to consider it.

* * *

"Romanoff. Hey, Romanoff. Psssst. _Romanoff_," came an insistent hiss from behind me three weeks later. My hands clenched into tight fists as I turned away from the gun scope I'd just been peering through to look at Clint, laying propped against a red brick chimney, with his bow laid lovingly in his lap.

"_Yes_, Agent Barton?" I hissed back dangerously. We'd been staking out on top of a roof for almost seven hours now, waiting for our prospective target to come out from the building opposite where we had reason to believe he was meeting with weapon smugglers, and where, if we were lucky, he would meet his end and we would finally be able to go home. The sun had long since set, and my patience with Barton was setting quickly as well.

"No need for formalities, Natasha, call me Clint," he said, and I swore I could almost see the glint of his smirk even in the darkness.

"No, I won't. And you'll call me Agent Romanoff, thank you," I said, fighting hard to keep my voice even and not betray my obvious annoyance. Because if I did, he would only feed off it and I might just have to murder him on top of this roof in the middle of Ukraine before he became even more unbearable. He seemed to ignore me completely, however.

"Natasha… Natasha… What a pretty name… Natasha… Nuh-tah-sha… Nat… Tash… Tasha—oh, I quite like that. Tasha! Tasha, Tasha, Tasha!" he continued muttering to himself. I groaned to myself, and it was all I could do to not scream out loud and blow our cover.

"_Do_ make an effort to shut up, won't you?" I pleaded irritably. He slung his bow on his back and crawled toward me, picking up the binoculars and peering over the edge of the building into the one across.

"Relax. We're gonna be here a while, they're only just having tea, take a look," he said, handing me the binoculars. I took them grudgingly and looked through them only to confirm what Clint had already told me. Several burly men were seated around a rickety wooden table, having some semblance of "polite tea" from a chipped white china set, seemingly ignoring the heavily armed bodyguards lurking darkly in practically every corner of the room. "So calm down," Clint sighed, leaning lazily on the small edging of the roof.

"No, I won't _calm down_. Do you know—do you _care_ how much this mission means to me?" I growled at him. He raised an amused eyebrow at me.

"What, you have a personal vendetta against Gustav Petrovich, the arms dealer and notorious mini-golfer?" he asked. I snorted despite myself, before cutting myself off, annoyed he'd been able to make me laugh.

"No," I said, sighing as I turned and also leaned against the rough edging. "This mission is my first chance to prove myself. No one takes me seriously and I'm fucking tired of it. I need to do this, and I'm not gonna let you or anyone fuck it up for me."

"And you think doing this one mission is going to change the way people think of you?" he asked, and I couldn't tell if the question was genuine or mocking, so I dignified it with a vague enough answer for both cases.

"I've nothing to lose, do I?"

We lay there a while longer, Clint cleaning his already ridiculously over-polished bow while I continued surveillance. I watched for an open shot, hoping to get a jump on the game, get rid of our target and clear the area before they came looking, but Mr. Petrovich kept annoyingly out of range.

"Barton, we have movement," I finally hissed. The men seemed to have come to an agreement, signed some papers and were moving toward the exit. Clint moved into place next to me, laying out a pair of guns in front of him and readying his bow.

"Alright, Petrovich is probably going to come out with his usual human wall around him. I'll take out one of his front guards and you take him. You're gonna have to be fast; the moment I shoot the first person, they'll close ranks around him and start shooting back. You got that?" he said quickly, actually surprising me with his sudden seriousness.

"Got it."

We waited in strained silence as people began filing out. I heard the sound of Clint pulling back an arrow and prepared my finger on my gun's trigger, centering the crosshairs of my scope on the dark hair of our target. My nerves tingled and my senses almost seemed to sting me with their sudden acuteness. I heard Clint's quiet exhale almost as if it was my own, the muted twanging sound of the bowstring as the arrow was released, the soft click as my finger tightened the trigger. I watched, almost as if in slow motion, as Clint's arrow flew gracefully and lodged itself in the forehead of its target, watched the body drop, clearing the way only nanoseconds before my bullet flew by and entered Petrovich's head through his ear. And then suddenly, as if someone had just turned up the volume to a deafening level, the world exploded into chaos. I heard my shot reverberate in my ears, and the sudden screams down below seemed to echo off the buildings as they realized they were being attacked.

"Go, Tasha. _Move_!" Clint half-pushed, half-dragged me away from the edge of the building, snapping me back into action. I picked up the gun, strapped it to my back and ran behind Clint, jumping from roof to roof until we dropped into small side streets. We ran all night from checkpoint to checkpoint we'd previously planned, a way of confusing our followers by continuously moving in the first crucial hours after a kill when we were most vulnerable. The checkpoints were all sorts of places, from the basement of an abandoned pub, the underside of a bridge, even the empty pool of an old mayor's manor, only staying to rest for moments before leaving again. We finally reached our previously arranged safe spot: a dried out sewage tunnel, long unused and half-caved in. We ran in, not stopping until we were a good ways from where an earthquake had almost completely blocked the tunnel with rubble. Finally, we allowed ourselves to stop, leaning against the cracked walls of the tunnel to catch out breaths.

"Hey, Barton?" I said when I'd finally recovered myself enough to speak.

"Yeah?" he answered, ten feet to the left from where I'd thought he was. It was pitch black, and we'd agreed beforehand not to risk using flashlights. We'd practiced running into the tunnel blindfolded for a week, lest we fall and crack our heads open on the precarious rocks. I heard something whoosh between us and held up my hands to catch the water bottle he'd thrown at me only a second late, the bottle instead hitting me square in the face. I huffed.

"_Don't_ call me Tasha," I hissed, rubbing my nose. I heard him chuckle, and even in the absolute darkness, I could practically _sense_ the smirk on his face. For once, I found it didn't bother me so much.

* * *

From there, we jumped from mission to mission, doing off each one with the ease only a pair of master assassins could pull off. Because there was no doubt Clint was the best at what he did, and together, we were a superpower.

We returned to SHIELD several months later, with an abundant amount of successful missions already under our belts, just in time for a "missions overview" meeting with what seemed to be practically all of SHIELD's agent population. We were all crammed around a long oval table for what really only meant to most of us getting dibs on the best missions. Normally, I wouldn't care what I would get and would skip the meeting, but this time around, I was after something very particular. I doodled idly on my notepad as everyone around chatted absentmindedly, waiting for Fury to arrive and start the meeting. I put down my pen when I noticed I'd been pushing it hard enough to tear several layers of paper. My nerves were pulled tight even though I was sure no one would fight me for the mission I wanted. My worry was Fury deciding I wasn't apt to carry it out.

This month, I'd finally gathered the courage to ask for the Russian Triad mission, the main targets being the three leaders of the KGB's Black Widow division, my previous captors.

A little rolled up piece of paper rolled in front of me, and I opened it quickly, already guessing its sender.

"Why are we here?" signed Hawk. I looked up to meet the familiar eyes seated a little ways down across the table from me. I shrugged as if to say he could leave any time he wanted, though he raised an eyebrow as if to say "Really?"

Clint and I were now widely accepted partners, though many people still turned up their noses disapprovingly at the partnership. Or rather, at my half of the partnership. Most male agents felt bad for Clint and couldn't seem to decide on why he'd pick me if he could have his choice of anyone with his skill and good standing. Most female agents also felt bad for Clint, though not as bad as they did for themselves, and couldn't seem to decide on why he'd pick me if he could have his choice of any of _them_. I'd seen plenty of girls practically beg him to reconsider his pick, sometimes even while I was present. But again and again, Clint would reply in his charmingly boyish manner that he still stood by his first choice.

Nick Fury strode in, effectively silencing the room with nothing more than his imposing manner.

"Alright, we all know why we're here, so let's get right down to it," he said simply as he took a seat at the head of the long table. At that, several hands shot up, waving insistently in the air, begging to be picked first to get first dibs. I had decided I'd wait until the first feeding frenzy died down. Which seemed to take a lot longer this time around as 99.9% of the female agent population jumped in to fight for their chance at a mission in Hawai'i. I rolled my eyes, leaning back in my chair to patiently wait.

When the atmosphere around the table had finally calmed, I forced my hand into the air quickly before I had the chance to second guess myself and pull it back down. Fury's one eye flicked to it almost instantly and he acknowledged me with a nod of his head.

"I'd like to take the Russian Triad," I said decisively. The quiet whisperings of people around the table died immediately as every pair of eyes in the room turned toward me and there was an almost comically collective gasp. Then the entire room erupted into not-so-quiet whispers of "She can't," and "He won't let her," and "She's too close." I said nothing, refusing to tear my gaze from Fury.

The whisperings had only just calmed down when Drake, an agent from my class that had always seemed to believe his big biceps gave him immense superiority, slammed his hands on the table and said, "That mission is practically suicide to an inexperienced agent."

I had only begun to turn to make a biting remark in my own defense when Clint said coolly, "Luckily for you, I don't think she was issuing you an invitation," in a calm whisper that carried loudly in the suddenly silent room. Everyone seemed to freeze as they looked from Clint to Drake, the latter of which was now a horrendous red color I would not have believed him capable of. I could only begin to imagine the things Drake was thinking, but he bit back his remarks and sank stony-faced back into his chair. Smart of him. Not many would go up against agents with seniority, much less Clint Barton, who could find a way to kill you from a mile away with nothing more than a wooden splinter.

He glanced at me quickly and raised an eyebrow the way I'd grown accustomed to seeing him do. Only when I turned away and let my face relax did I realize I'd been smiling. And that surprised me more than anything that'd just happened.

"Romanoff, don't you think you're a little too… _close_ to this mission?" Fury asked me directly when silence had fallen again.

He was obviously expecting to hear me deny it, because he looked at me with surprise when I readily answered, "Yes… I am, sir." I felt, rather than heard, everyone in the room fidget with surprise, as well as a keen level of attention. Because everyone was interested in how this would turn out.

Fury studied me silently for several dragging moments, all the while leaving me to think he was surely about to reject me in front of the entire agent ensemble and then I'd surely be the joke of the entire facility and I'd been such an idiot for not approaching him privately where the damage would have been more contained. Damn my pride. Damn it all to hell. _Of course_ he wouldn't let me go. _I_ wouldn't let me go. I _was_ too close.

"Granted," Fury finally said, his two syllables reverberating in the stunned silent room. With none more shocked than me.

"Thank you, sir," I finally said. "Excuse me." I pushed away from the table when he nodded to acknowledge my leave and walked swiftly out, ignoring all the eyes that suddenly weighed on me.

I made my way through the busy hallways toward my quarters to prepare myself and again look over the Russian Triad file I'd been studying since before my own graduation. I'd become almost an entirely new person in the past three years, but I hadn't forgotten the oath I'd made myself my first night in my new SHIELD bed. I _would_ bring my captors to their knees. Or I'd gladly die trying.

"Well, that was a nice little show back there, wasn't it?" Clint said as he came running up next to me. I didn't look at him, only kept marching resolutely forward, suddenly immensely abashed by his defending me. It amazed me sometimes how much he made me feel like I was still a timid seventeen-year-old. I hadn't even been that way before I met him. It was his doing and I wasn't sure if I should hate him for that too.

"You got out fast," I said simply. He chuckled, easily falling into step beside me with his long strides.

"I just had to say I was going with you and then I high-tailed it out of there just as fast as you," Clint said with an easy laugh. I stopped short.

"No."

"No what?"

"No… No, you're not coming with me," I said, and it came out more harshly than I intended it. That seemed to happen to me a lot. And I regretted it silently when I saw the rejection flash in his eyes like I'd slapped him. "I—I mean—this is something I have to do alone, okay?" I mended weakly.

But as always, he pretended like nothing had happened and assumed his placid disposition easily. "Tough luck. You're not free of me yet. You need one more mentored mission before being cleared to go off and sow your wild oats by your lone little self. And I'll eat Fury's eye patch before you find someone else to mentor you. Face it, you need me," he grinned at me. I grunted, pushing him out of my way. I could very well go on any other random mission with him and leave to Russia alone after, but I was impatient, especially now that Fury had approved it. And I hated to think of anyone spreading rumors of how I'd backed out.

"Fine, whatever," I said, continuing to walk. "But you will _not_ get in the way when I kill them. I'll do it my way. They're _mine_. Do we have an understanding?" I asked coldly.

I saw Clint's jaw tighten, but he nodded. He knew as well as anyone what this mission meant to me. This wasn't like my first mission to prove myself. Which had been a bust, as people still obviously and unashamedly hated me, always openly sneering at my belt when I passed by and muttering none too quietly about the _audacity_ I'd had to wear it within _their_ walls.

"Fine," he said.

"Fine," I agreed.

And in truth, it was fine. Because if I wanted anyone to be with me for this, it was Clint. I couldn't have possibly foreseen Clint being the agent to mentor me—hell, I'd pretty much resigned myself to the fact I'd never see him again—but it seemed the sort of thing that, in retrospect, was always meant to happen. Now, that didn't mean he didn't take some getting used to. Because he did. But I was glad I toughed it out because now, I couldn't possibly imagine anyone who could have possibly eased me into this new life any better than he did, who patiently taught me to keep my cool and just relax, who gently educated me in the simple art of allowing myself a laugh every now and again that I'd never learned before. And the way we moved together just _worked_. We learned each other quickly, the ways we thought and moved and targeted and fought, until one simply became an extension of the other. There was an unbroken fluidity that flowed between us like a river of understanding. In the past year I'd spent with him, I'd become sure Clint was the type of partner other people waited their entire lives without finding. Even I found myself surprised at how easily I'd chosen to trust him.

The only snag was the mystery of his disappearance for three years that still hung between us like a dark cloud. There were times when I could almost see an explanation hanging on the tip of his tongue, but every time, he seemed to think better of it and would look away without a single word said. And I'd proceed to mentally reprimand myself for having been such an abysmally impulsive person, sure it was the memory of me harshly shutting him down the first time that discouraged Clint to continued silence. And the one thing that didn't seem to change with the years was my pride, which kept me from asking him again, even though even _I_ could recognize it'd be the easiest mend for my dilemma, because the mortifying awkwardness would eat me alive. So he didn't speak of it, and neither did I, both of us simply teetering weakly on the edge of the subject, but refusing to find the strength to finally jump.

Until we were pushed.


	4. Chapter 4

**_Same disclaimers as Chapter 1._**

_**A/N:** Many heartfelt thank yous to all you that read my humble fanfiction, and a thousand heartfelt kisses to all of you that review. It means the world to me to know you guys enjoy my writing. I'd like to apologize for how long this chapter took and how long future chapters might take now that I'm back in school. My writing time has now been limited to mostly weekends, so please be patient and I'll deliver as soon as I can. Love you all._

_Enjoy!_

* * *

The Russian Triad mission _would_ have been suicide to an inexperienced agent. Fortunately for me, even as a fledgling SHIELD agent, I wasn't without experience. And it certainly didn't hurt that I was working with Clint. But even so, it was the longest mission we'd ever taken on together, with the longest preparation by far. We planned on-location for more than three months, refining even the smallest details of our plans. There was no room for error. No guessing. No "if"s. And for this particular mission, I made sure there would be no "winging it," as Clint fondly called it. He was a fan of it. Said it added a "decent level of excitement." And normally, I wouldn't care and would let him play his games, but this time, I made sure we were meticulous. I had too much on the line. I'd have no mistakes.

It was really getting down to the wire when I received that fateful call from Fury only a week or so before our planned mission date. I'd expected he was calling for a status update. He wasn't. Much to my infinite amount of displeasure, he was calling to inform us all agents were needed back at base immediately.

"What do you _mean '_all agents are needed back at base immediately'?" I said through gritted teeth into the standard issue agent cell phones.

"I mean what I said. So get Barton and get back here. I said _immediately_," I heard Fury growl on the other end of the line. I bit back a growl of my own.

"What the hell for?" I said, knowing even as I said it I was pushing it. Fury wasn't known for his patience.

"It should be enough to say '_Because I fucking said so_,' but if it'll make you get here any faster, I'll have you know we are on the brink of bringing down Vengate. We found the base and it's bigger than we thought. We need everyone."

Vengate? Finally found? I was actually shocked. Vengate was by far the largest, most secretive, and most elusive arms supplier. Unfortunately, they didn't exactly choose to supply to the right people, and they became a huge national security issue. SHIELD had been after them for years before I even arrived. I sighed. There was no way I was wheedling out of this one.

"Send the nice jet," I grumbled before clicking End Call. My hand clenched around the phone. For good measure, I threw it against the concrete wall of the small hideout in Moscow Clint and I had been inhabiting. The phone fell to pieces. There was something satisfying about breaking things when in a rage.

"Barton!" I yelled out so that he could hear me from the room he'd chosen as his own down the tiny hall. I heard the distinct thud of him falling off his cot and groaning.

"Wha—?" he said as he stumbled out of his room, his hair a mess, clutching a pistol in one hand and his pillow in the other. I couldn't help grinning.

"Come on, soldier. We're going home," I said tonelessly as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. His hand fell away from his face to reveal shock in his eyes.

"Home?"

* * *

Our return to base was actually quite short. We were only informed on the mission before being sent right off again to a desolate corner of Greenland where Vengate Corporation had decide to hide their bombs, missiles, and all sorts of other goodies. And I arrived in Greenland much the same way I had arrived at base: bitter and raging. Spending a sixteen-hour flight in a commercial plane jam-packed with basically everyone from SHIELD who disliked me did little to improve my mood.

"Will you _relax_?" Clint called out behind me as we stepped off onto the icy runway, hitting me squarely in the back of the head with one of the numerous bags of roasted peanuts he'd brought with him off the plane. I turned to glare at him, but he only grinned and dumped a whole bag into his mouth. I huffed, pulling up the white hood of the new parkas we'd all been given to fend off Greenland's icy bite. I pulled it tight around my face, stomping the snow off my boots. I hated being cold. Why was Greenland even icy? Shouldn't it be green? Fuck this mission. Fuck Greenland. Fuck Clint and his peanuts.

We were only given three days in a small cabin to review our plan: to infiltrate and take control. Clint somehow managed to spend the three days up in the rafters, simply listening and cutting in when he thought necessary before withdrawing back to his nest. I stuck to corners with my arms folded, fantasizing of gloriously kicking the asses of everyone who gave me dirty looks as if I might detonate any minute during those three days in that cramped cabin. And Clint thought it'd be funny to continue to throw peanuts from his abundant stash at me from the rafters. I locked my jaw whenever I felt the little shells plunking on my head or otherwise landing in my lap. Oh, I'd murder him!

* * *

On the fourth day, we all waited impatiently for night to fall. Everyone was a little skittish. Not scared, per se. Just all bubbling over with the pent-up energy stored before a mission. The fact two-hundred-and-fifty-something people were all pushed together in a small space made it more obvious. And somewhat claustrophobic. Finally, the senior agents, Clint included, gave the okay to head out. And there was an almost audible exhale of relief as we finally pushed our way toward fresh air.

We moved in several long lines through miles and miles of the surrounding forest, not a single twig snapping beneath our skilled feet. The familiar feeling of sharp sense acuteness returned, my eyes searching for even the slightest unnatural shift in the shadows, my ears straining for even the most hushed exhale to betray an enemy.

We arrived at the edge of the trees after what seemed to be an eternity and, after receiving a nod from our line leaders, proceeded to quickly shed off our white snow attire, our familiar black gear emerging. I looked up as I finished burying my white gear in the snow, catching the eyes of Clint from two lines away. He'd pulled for me to be in his group, but as chance would have it, we'd been separated. He was shadowy, but I'd know that profile anywhere, and his eyes glinted familiarly in the diffused light slanting through the trees from the Vengate watch towers.

He gave me a nod, _our_ nod, the nod we always gave each other when we were about to split up on any mission. The nod was a silent goodbye and good luck wish, a silent "I'll see you soon," even as we acknowledged we might not see each other again. Our nod.

I returned it before turning away from him resolutely. I needed to focus. Being with this many people—particularly people I didn't even like very much—instead of just him felt strange and wrong. But I couldn't let that get to me. I needed to get on my game. I needed to make it through tonight so I could slit Clint's throat for all the fucking peanuts.

The far left groups began moving forward. We all stood quiet. After receiving a signal, our group leader nodded to the rest and we split in half, moving away from each other. And taking me away from Clint.

At the tree line I finally set eyes on the imposing concrete wall caging in the facility. Black shadows flitted at the top of the three watch towers on this side of the wall. When one of the shadows flashed a red light our way we knew they were one of ours. And they'd cleared the way for our entrance. A long rope ladder was thrown down to us. The climb seemed to take forever.

At the top of the tower we split into smaller groups, each going our own designated way. My group consisted of two girls who'd been part of my class in training and obviously didn't like me, Kya and Margaret, a guy only one class older who didn't talk much but whose name I believed was Luke, and a senior agent, Mathew, who also didn't seem very happy when I was split into his group.

We ran across the cold ground to where we knew there to be a hatch leading to the power control room. Our first job was to shut down the power and stop the production. The hatch was quite small, smaller than we'd expected, and we were forced to crawl. Thankfully, it was not very long, and before long, Mathew kicked out a vent into the control room. There were a few surprised cries from the people in the room as we rolled out, but all were silenced quickly and quietly, and before anyone could hit the intruder alert.

"Kya, Margaret, get the bodies out of the way. Luke, you and Romanoff get the power, you know what to do," Mathew commanded, and I was sure he'd deliberately called only me by my last name to exclude me. I also noticed how he didn't address me directly. And I told myself it was fine because he could kiss my great ass, but I still found my teeth clenching as I turned away.

Luke and I set straight to work on the computers, pushing the designated buttons and typing in the necessary codes. Sector after sector of the facility began to turn off on the screen above us, signaling the power being successfully cut. I was working on the last one, the production room, and pressed enter to shut off the power but was met only with a blaring alarm which I could hear echoing through the whole facility in its intermittent pauses.

"What happened!? What'd you do?" Mathew was upon me in nanoseconds. I jumped away from the dashboard of buttons and keyboards, feeling like a scolded child.

"I didn't do _anything_! I was shutting it down same as the others!" I said defiantly. Mathew cursed loudly in several languages.

"Do you how many lives are outside of this room right now that depend on us? On you!?" he yelled down at me. He was quite tall. I didn't like having to look up at him so I looked away.

"Of course I do. But I didn't do anything!" I repeated.

"She's right," Luke cut in quietly all of a sudden. Mathew and I turned toward him at the same time. His fingers were still typing away furiously, his eyes glued to a screen. "She didn't do anything wrong. The production room has an alarm against intruders because it can't be shut off. Production never stops. Smart, I guess. No one working here would ever shut it off. If anyone tried, they'd know there were intruders."

Mathew turned away from us, cursing some more, and omitting any apology in my direction, of course.

"But…" Luke said. Mathew swiveled back to him.

"'But'? What 'but'? Come on, Luke, give me a 'but'!" Mathew said, ignoring the snickering from Kya and Margaret who were obviously enjoying the double entendre like the stupid little fools they were.

"There's a manual override in the actual room," Luke continued, the alarm still piercing our ears.

"I'll go!" I said right away, more to get away from them than to redeem myself.

"I give the orders around here and I say we're all going," Mathew said coldly. I rolled my eyes.

We ran from the room after quickly studying a map to reach the production room. We moved swiftly through the halls, the alarm giving us a lot of speed as we didn't have to worry about being quiet. We made quick progress, leaving a trail of dead bodies in our wake.

We pushed through a set of huge double doors and found ourselves at the southern end of the enormous production room, red emergency lights flashing everywhere but the enormous machines continuing to rumble. We ran to the left, and I didn't know if it was just me, but it seemed everyone was intent on leaving me as far behind as possible. I pushed forward, falling into step between Margaret and Kya.

More guards erupted in front of us, but were discarded quickly. As we started running again, I was the only one to hear the grunt of pain behind me. I turned to see Kya falling to the ground with a hand clenched to her upper arm, a guard standing above her with a dripping knife. I fell back, quickly kicking him away from her and driving his own knife into his neck. Kya was up already, but blood was seeping through her fingers, staining her hand red.

"Oh. Shit. Hold still," I said, my eyes flicking between her and the rest of the group that had already ran a fair distance away without turning back. I pulled a long rolled up bandage from my back belt pocket and quickly wrapped her arm. She eyed me dubiously as I wound the bandage around her arm.

"There," I said quietly as I pinned the bandage to itself. She gave me an odd look before running off again to catch up with the group. I sighed to myself before following. These people would never change.

I caught up with the group to find them grouped together staring up at a wall. I followed their line of sight and was met with the sight of what must be the great red manual override lever. And it was a good thirty feet above the ground with not even a ladder to reach it.

"How the fuck are we supposed to get up there?" Margaret muttered, her eyes continuing to dart around to look for oncoming attacks. I scanned the wall, but there was nothing. Obviously workers weren't supposed to try to turn it off ever. My eyes ran to the right where the nearest thing was a sort of balcony that ran around the room. I ran over, climbing the ladder up.

"Romanoff, what are you doing!?" I heard Mathew yell below me. I didn't dignify him with an answer. I reached the thin metal scaffold and run full speed toward the edge. I jumped swiftly onto the edge of the metal bar caging it in and propelled myself upward to another metal bar protruding from the wall. I swung once, twice, three times, remembering vividly my training as a child on uneven bars. Finally, at the bottom of my fourth turn, I let go, thrusting myself forward. I flew through the air, my hands outstretched in front of me for the red lever. Forward, forward, and I was close, but I was losing altitude, and I wasn't going to make it, I realized I wasn't going to make it, I was going to fall, I was going to—my fingers clenched around the cold metal, swinging my body forward but pulling it down with my weight. All at once, the alarm ceased ringing, the machines ceased their grumbling, and all the lights in the room shut off, plunging us into darkness as I let go of the bar and landed lithely on the balls of my feet.

"Got it," I said in the sudden silence that almost seemed solid compared to the ruckus from before. My eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness, meeting the sight of the rest of the group looking at each other with stupefied expressions.

Mathew seemed to be having an intense internal battle and I almost started to believe he might actually praise me or thank me or something when he finally cleared his throat awkwardly and said, "Yes, alright, uh, let's go."

Of course, not.

But as we all ran off for the exit again, Luke fell back with me and whispered "Nice work, Natasha," in his quiet way, before running to catch up again.

We resumed more quietly now that we were again plunged into silence and darkness, but we didn't meet many other guards. All seemed to have started to flee or were probably already dead. The halls were lonely and quiet. Or boots squeaking on the floor was the only noise to greet our ears when we took a sharp turn into a room Mathew had thought was an exit and came crashing into more people. We all took fighting stances, pulling our weapons immediately, not noticing they did the exact same until a familiar voice cut through the silence, "Stop—stop! It's us!"

I slackened immediately. Clint.

Mathew pulled a flashlight and its beam did indeed show us familiar faces and the even more familiar uniform we all shared. Clint stepped forward through the crowd, shielding his eyes as he pulled his own flashlight. He shone it into Mathew's face, and I saw the understanding flash across his eyes as he swung the beam first right, then left, until it settled on me, and relief swept over his face.

As if this had been some signal, everyone pulled flashlights and the room was suddenly alight with the eerie glow of fifteen or so beams of light.

"What are all of you doing here?" Mathew asked, eyeing with confusion the large group with Clint. Every leader was only supposed to take five people, and he had nine.

"Derek's dead. And a hostage has been taken," Clint said tonelessly, strictly business, as if we were talking about the weather.

"We're not sure. But we think the hostage is through that vent over there," Clint said, bringing Mathew over to the vent through which some light was shining through. Mathew peered in.

"Are those… are those chair legs?" Mathew asked. Clint nodded, also crouching down to look through.

"We were just starting to think someone should go through. We need someone small," he said, sticking his head in as if to show that not even his shoulders cleared the vent. Everyone looked around at each other, as if sizing each other up like students who'd just been told by the teacher to form a line from shortest to tallest. As Clint stood, almost all at once, everyone's eyes seemed to settle on me in the back of the room. I blinked as Clint's eyes met mine, the realization hitting me as it hit everyone else. I wasn't the shortest in the room, but I was the thinnest and leanest by far.

"Natasha?" Clint said quietly as I stepped forward. I didn't look at him as I crouched down to inspect the vent myself. I suddenly couldn't bear to meet his eyes. Through the vent I could see what looked like a white room at the far end of it through a grate. I could also make out what looked like chair legs and the black fabric of our uniforms. And I knew as I stuck my head in that I would fit just fine.

"I'll go," I said, pulling out to hand my flashlight to Clint, only looking up at him briefly to give him our nod. "You better not look in after me to look at my ass," I warned him quietly. His jaw was clenched but he smiled, however tightly, and returned our nod.

I fit myself into the vent, arms first. It was quite tight, but there was just enough room for me to pull myself with my arms and push with my thighs. Even so, the progress was slow, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I suddenly pulled up to the grate. I looked through to make sure the room was empty, which it was, except for the agent tied to the chair whose face was still out of my line of sight. I pushed at the grate, hearing a few surprised noises from the agent inside that sounded decidedly feminine. With a final slam with my head, the grate burst out and I withdrew from the vent, rubbing my head.

"Shit," I said as I stood, meeting the sight of none other than Demetra, the very same girl I'd once punched in the jaw, strapped to a rickety chair with what seemed to be miles of rope, her mouth covered with duct tape, and her eyes flicking frantically from me to the bomb strapped to her chest.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," I said, running back to the open vent through which I could see Clint's poorly lit face.

"Get out," I yelled. "Get out, get everyone out. There's a bomb!"

"What!?" Clint's eyes widenened. "Who's with you?"

"It's Demetra. And she has a fucking bomb strapped to her chest. Get everyone _out!_"

"What about you?" Clint yelled to me, his voice betraying more worry than I'd ever heard.

"I'll get us out. You take everyone else. Just go!" I said, pulling away from the vent but hearing the sound of stomping feet through it. For once, he'd listened.

"Alright, okay, we're gonna get out of here, okay?" I said as I pulled the duct tape off her in one painful stroke.

"On the back, there's one on the back too!" she cried. I looked around her to find another, bigger, bomb on the back of the chair, reading less than three minutes.

"Alright, I'll get both," I said, kneeling in front of her to examine the first one on her chest. I licked my lips as I opened the contraption, pulling tiny wire cutters from my belt. The format looked familiar, and I suddenly thanked every God or spirit or almighty being that I hadn't ditched class the day we'd studied Vengate bombs. They'd been given their own class because their bombs were so common everywhere. I pulled carefully at the wires, Demetra's knees trembling beneath me.

"Hurry, hurry, Romanoff, please hurry," she said frantically, and I tried my hardest not to tell her to shut up. The clock on her chest ticked down menacingly as I overturned the contraption gently. I found the designated wire, snipped it, and the clock shut down. I sighed with relief, untying the ropes that held it to her chest and putting it down gently. She was still breathing heavily as I moved around to her back, her dark hair plastered to her face with sweat as she continued to chant "hurry, hurry, hurry," and I wondered if I might not put the tape back over her mouth.

"Alright, alright, I'm hurrying," I tried to say calmly, because I knew she probably thought she was going to die and I should try to be understanding, even though I secretly thought taking on this job meant she should be prepared for dying anyway.

"Please. Please, Natasha, please hurry," she whimpered as I started working the cover off the other bomb. I froze. She'd never addressed me by my first name. In fact, in school she'd hardly addressed me by name at all. I'd always been KGB. "Natasha, please. My baby. My son. I need to see my son again. _Please_."

I looked at her. "You have a son?" I asked as I uncovered the contraption and seeing, with a sinking feeling, that it was much more complicated that the previous one, wires criss-crossing everywhere.

"Jake. Mine and Mathew's boy. Our precious boy," she whispered, saying 'Jake' like it was the most beautiful, divine thing in her life. I'd never have guessed she'd had a child. I realized I still thought of her as her seventeen-year-old self from training. I'd never given much thought to the fact that we'd all grown plenty since then, and she would have had plenty of time to get pregnant and have a son in all that time I'd been away and hadn't seen her. But somehow, it still seemed impossible. It seemed ludicrous that she'd made a whole other life besides her job, that she'd had a baby being what she was.

"Natasha. Natasha, I have to see him. He's only two. I have to see my baby again," she cried desperately.

"You will, okay? I'm gonna get us out and you'll see Jake again," I reassured her, feeling strange as I did. I couldn't quite believe I was comforting someone I'd once _punched in the jaw_. Sweat trickled down my neck as I pulled delicately at wires, trying to remember the basics of bomb disarming all the while the timer ticked closer and closer to zero.

And I was trying desperately to remember if I was supposed to snip the red, blue, or yellow wire.

_Fifteen…_

And Demetra kept crying for her Jake.

_Fourteen…_

And more and more wires seemed to come out of nowhere just when I thought I'd finally figured it out.

_Thirteen_…

And I thought fleetingly of Clint and how I might not see his stupid smirk again.

_Twelve_…

Or hear him call me Tasha.

_Eleven_…

More wires.

_Ten…_

And more tears.

_Nine…_

And more Clint.

_Eight…_

Dammit, was it blue or yellow?

_Seven…_

Or red?

_Six…_

Sweat.

_Five…_

Blue or red.

_Four…_

Jake.

_Three…_

Blue or yellow.

_Two…_

Clint.

_One…_

My shaking hands took the yellow wire.

_Zero…_

* * *

"Can I have everyone's attention?"

I looked up from my glass of vodka on the rocks. We were at a bar in Seattle, only two days after our escape from Vengate, which was _not_ blown to smithereens and was now under the safe control of SHIELD meanwhile it was being dismantled. Apparently it was tradition to come to this bar, which was run by undercover agents, after a successful mission. I hadn't known nor cared since I wasn't really ever included in traditions, but this time Clint had determinedly dragged me along since I was the _hero_.

"_LISTEN UP!_" Clint continued when his first attempt hadn't gotten very much attention besides mine. Quiet settled around the bar as face after face turned toward him.

"First of all, I'd like to congratulate all of us for a successful mission," he said, a bout of applause answering his words. "And a moment of silence for our seven fallen agents." And the bar again fell to silence as everyone bowed their heads. I bowed mine as well.

"Just one more thing now," Clint said, causing heads to snap back up to him. I looked at him as well, an eyebrow raised as his eyes suddenly locked onto mine. "A toast."

My eyes narrowed. He wouldn't. I shook my head infinitesimally, but Clint only looked away with a grin.

"A toast for Natasha Romanoff, who not only shut off the place and saved Demetra, but _all_ of us from a blast that would have blown the surrounding six mile radius sky-high. To Natasha!" he said loudly, thrusting his drink into the air.

It was quiet. Uncomfortably quiet. I looked down at my drink.

"To Natasha," said a voice sitting at the bar. I looked up to see Demetra take one hand and raise her glass, the other holding onto the bouncing baby boy on her lap who must be Jake. He looked quite a lot like Mathew, but he had Demetra's sharp grey eyes. I stared at her, surprised, as Mathew himself, who was standing just beside her with a hand on her shoulder raised his own glass.

"To Natasha."

"To Natasha," called another voice from across the joint. Luke, raising his glass to glint in the neon lighting of the place.

Then all at once, glasses were raised everywhere with an echoing chorus of "To Natasha." I gulped, my eyes glued to Clint who still had his arm raised, his smirk still plastered on his face, the smirk I'd been afraid I'd never see again.

I raised my own glass in response, a bashful smile on my face that felt extremely foreign. And then, as if on cue, everyone broke into applause. And I couldn't exactly say why, but I couldn't look away from Clint.

Everyone returned to their chatter when I lowered my drink, gulping it down in one go. I'd managed to charm the bartender into letting me take the entire bottle of vodka to my lonely table in the corner, but I suddenly didn't really want to drink anymore. I was already feeling strangely buzzed, though not with alcohol. I walked quietly out of the place, returning shyly the smiles that were suddenly sent my way from everywhere in the bar, breathing the night air outside with a small sense of relief. Not exactly because it'd been uncomfortable inside. Just… _different_.

"So I guess you're off to Russia now, eh?" said a voice behind me. I hadn't even taken three steps away from the place. I turned to see Clint leaning on the brick wall, his face shadowy.

"I guess so," I replied. I actually hadn't given it much thought. In fact, I'd completely forgotten until now that I could go alone now. Leave whenever I pleased. My parole was over. And so was my stupid babysitting period.

"Be careful, alright?" he said quietly. "I want to see you again. Alive."

I nodded and the silence suddenly dragged between us. It was unusual. Clint usually didn't possess the ability to be quiet.

"Come with me," I said so suddenly I surprised myself almost as much as I did him.

"What?" he said, and I was violently reminded of the first night we'd met. We'd said the exact same words to each other, but the roles had been reversed.

"Come with me," I repeated, taking the few steps to close the gap between us. "We're partners, aren't we?"

He looked down at me, a grin spreading across his face so genuinely thrilled that I smiled too.

"Partners," he agreed, letting me link my arm through his as we walked off into the dark, my heels clicking on the pavement and his laugh resounding through the night.


	5. Chapter 5

_**Same disclaimers as chapter 1.**_

_**AN: **Hugs and kisses to my readers and reviewers. You guys make it easier to keep writing. Here's the next chapter! Hope the wait wasn't too grueling. Enjoy!_

_PLEASE REVIEW!  
_

* * *

"You know how I'm always having to tell you to relax?"

Clint's voice reached me as if from a long ways away. I turned to him slowly as we wove through the busy streets of Moscow. It'd changed little since I was a girl, and I greeted it with a mixture of nostalgia and apprehension, like meeting an old friend you weren't sure you still liked.

"Yes, why?" I asked absentmindedly, clinging closer to his arm against the evening chill. We were both dressed formally to attend the gala event that had been organized solely for covering a secret Triad meeting. And it was our cover to get in as well. It turned out our return from Greenland had coincided quite nicely with this event, which made things a lot easier for us. Even if I didn't like to admit it because the smugness on Clint's face whenever he said "I told you it'd work out," made me want to shoot myself in the foot. And the short amount of time left meant we didn't have to hide in dingy rat holes while we prepared. We got to stay at a five-star hotel, and I couldn't bring myself to complain with that.

I was wearing a simple black cutout dress with my thick curls pinned up, but Clint looked particularly dashing in his black suit and bowtie. I'd jokingly called him a "proper 007" when I'd first seen him emerge from the bathroom, but I hadn't been able to ignore the hungry growl deep within me when I'd approached him to straighten his bowtie and had been taken in by his deliciously appealing cologne. The change was a good one, as agents usually became accustomed to only smelling of sweat and blood.

"Because you _need to relax_," he said pointedly, shaking me gently to break me out of my musing reverie of times past in these same streets and of how Clint's handsome suit might look on the floor.

"I _am_ relaxed," I said with an easy laugh that would have fooled anyone. Anyone except Clint. I'd found out quickly that I was particularly good at lying to manipulate information out of people, but all my techniques fell to ashes with Clint. It was like he could see right through me to the little girl he'd found all those years ago still hidden inside. And sometimes the ease with which he did it scared me.

He scoffed. "Just try, okay? You'll only fuck yourself up if you try to be perfect," he said calmly. "Besides, we're supposed to be a happy couple going to an important event. _Yay!_" he whispered with mock enthusiasm as the illuminating lights spilling out of the open doors of the event hall fell over us, casting a warm glow over Clint that made him look so unbearably attractive I wanted to hit him.

We walked, arms linked, towards one of the many young men in suits taking the names of guests to allow admission. "Names?" he said politely in a voice betraying a subtle Russian accent that actually stole a smile from me because of its familiarity.

"Mr. and Mrs. Smith," Clint readily replied. I tried not to snort. Clint had been in charge of coming up with false identities and sneaking our names into the guest list, so I'd known nothing of it. The boy quickly found and scratched off our names, bowing us in as he bid us a good time.

"Mr. and Mrs. Smith?" I asked incredulously as we walked away. Clint shrugged, but his familiar smirk was back.

"I thought it'd be funny," he answered simply as we entered a grand ballroom, the walls covered with exquisite tapestries and the high ceiling dominated by an enormous sparkling chandelier. The large room was already busy with hundreds of finely-dressed people, milling about to chat and eat or moving swiftly on the spacious dance floor.

"Let's dance," Clint said readily. I accepted; dancing was the fastest way to scope out the room in all directions without looking suspicious. Basic spy 101. The fact Clint was clinging tightly to my waist was merely a bonus.

We moved lithely in wide circles, our training somehow also lending us an easy grace as we held onto each other and let our eyes rove freely over the other's shoulder. On our third turn around the room, I muttered quietly into his ear, "Left side of the room, there's a door waiters are using to come in and out of, but there's two guests standing on either side that haven't moved since we started dancing. Probably bodyguards."

"Hm?" was the only vague response I received. I turned my head slightly to see Clint resting his chin gently on my pale shoulder with his eyes closed and the subtlest of smiles pulling gently at the corners of his lips. So, obviously I'd been the only one scoping. I slapped his back.

"Dammit, Clint, listen!" I said more insistently, though a small smile had crept on my lips as well. I shook it off, however, because tonight wasn't a night for smiles. I needed focus. He snapped up slightly as if someone had just woken him.

"What?" he said in a voice hinted with subtle annoyance, as if _I _was the one being obnoxious.

"That door over there," I said, spinning him so he faced it, "There's two men standing guard but there's a lot of traffic. I think we can sneak through." I pulled away from him as the song ended and weaved us through other dancers toward the edge of the room.

"You sure you don't want one more dance? We're gonna be working _all_ night after this," he said with a wide grin. I rolled my eyes and turned away from him in way of answer. I seemed to have finally got him to focus, however, because he was the first to speak in regards to any sort of action plan.

"Well, the waiters are dressed nicely, so I'll fit right in, but you're a bit of a sore thumb, Tasha."

I'd long since stopped trying to fight him about calling me anything other than the nickname he'd given me on our first mission. Whatever I told him went in one ear and out the other before I was even done saying it, and the truth was, the stupid nickname had begun to grow on me.

"Meet me at the end of the hall those doors lead to. I'll find my own way," I said calmly, already mentally scanning the floor maps we'd memorized for another route. And it was looking a lot like I'd have to go through the vents. I groaned inwardly. Vents reminded me too much of my last mission.

Our eyes met as we acknowledged we'd be separating and we gave each other our nod at precisely the same moment. I expected him to leave right after but he still held my gaze. And I would have told him to fucking get going but I suddenly felt frozen in place by his stare. Finally, he seemed to blink himself out of it and turned without a word, disappearing into the swarm of tuxedos.

I turned on my heel, quietly making my way to the bathroom. It was enormous and clattering with women. Thankfully, the stalls were tall, tall enough to cover the vent in the wall I meant to go through. And the deafening chatter of the women was enough cover. I hovered near the stall where I knew the vent to be, pretending to powder my nose until a slim woman finally exited and I rushed in. I locked the stall, removed my stilettos and immediately set to work on opening the vent. Thankfully, it opened with ease and I was making my way through the large air vents in less than a minute.

Left. Right. Another right. I pulled up to a vent showing me thick red carpet through the grate and pulled it quietly out. I peeked my head through and saw Clint standing idly a few feet away with his back turned. I smiled, letting myself fall through and landing on the thick carpet soundlessly.

"Are you lost, sir?" I whispered into his ear in a vaguely Russian accent I didn't have anymore.

"Fuck!" he said, turning on the spot. I grinned. "I'm not sure if I should be worried or proud that you're the only person who can sneak up on me."

I shrugged, putting my shoes back on. "Come on. Let's find the goddamn meeting room," I said, turning down the hall. We moved quietly deeper and deeper into the building, dispatching more guards than I could count on all my fingers and toes. The closer I felt we were getting, the more my anxiety seemed to spike up. I imagined I could feel the blood pounding in my temple. The feeling wasn't pleasant. I could hear Clint padding quietly behind me and several times I seriously considered turning and telling him we should just go home, that we needed to get the hell out of here. I suddenly felt we'd bitten off more than we could chew. This _was _suicide.

I had to _remind_ myself we were the best. I had to remind myself of Natalia, a little girl with her whole life ahead of her. Stolen. I kept myself moving forward for her. For me. I needed this.

"Tasha. Over there…" Clint whispered to me as he peeked over a corner. I pressed myself to him to peek over as well. Two guards flanking a large ornate red door. We suspected these to be the last. An organization as secretive as theirs would never allow anyone to be in the room of the meeting. They'd have to count on the surrounding area being well-protected. Tonight, they'd counted wrong.

Clint and I nodded and rushed around the corner, closing the space between us and the door in moments, each of us taking a guard before they could yell out any kind of warning. Mine fell to my feet with a snapped neck. Clint's fell with a line across his throat spurting red. I looked away.

"Ready?" he whispered as he came next to me to face the door. Normally, I would answer immediately. Not only because missions always depended on speed, but because I was always ready. But I found myself faltering. He turned to look at me quizzically, obviously noticing. I didn't meet his eyes. He turned forward again, standing next to me in silence.

We stood like that for several moments, Clint's head bowed, my eyes glued to the red door. I couldn't say why, but my stomach was knotted and my throat felt like I was being choked. I wasn't afraid. I didn't_ feel_ afraid. But I couldn't bring myself to move any further. To open that door. To face what might be inside. To face a swallowing darkness and have my soul sucked out again.

I shook away the thoughts. I reminded myself all I would find inside was three more targets, same as all the others. I touched Clint's hand softly to tell him that I was ready… and that I was grateful he waited for me without needing a reason. He looked up slowly.

"Okay," I whispered. Clint nodded and we both moved forward. We needed to be fast. After this moment, the element of surprise would be gone. With one final look in my direction, Clint pulled a gun and shot the lock on the door; I followed right after with a strong kick that made it burst open.

"To the floor! Get on the floor!" I yelled as I ran in, pulling my own gun from a hidden hip holster. The three men seemed to barely be reacting to the first gun shots as we ran in. They were seated around an unnecessarily large table, clad in fine suits, shouting calls of surprise in Russian. Two were dark-haired, one blonde, all of them in their late forties.

"Do what she says!" Clint yelled more viciously than I could have ever imagined him to be capable of. We each took hold of one immediately while Clint kept his gun poised on the third. I threw the first to the floor, one of the dark-haired ones, and pulled the two guns out from his sides. "You make a move and you die!" I heard Clint yell behind me.

I moved to take the blonde one from Clint as he went around to get the last one. I rid the blonde of his weapons while Clint handled the last one then moved around the front, his gun still at the ready.

"On your knees," I said. "I know you understand me. _Get up!"_

They moved slowly and I moved around to the front as well, Clint standing behind me. With their faces finally up, I could identify them. The one on the far left was Akim Safronov. The only blonde, of course, was Filipp Yarmonik. And the one of the right was Valentin Antonovich, who I remembered sometimes coming into the Black Widow facilities when I was a girl.

"Hands behind your head!" I yelled, my gun pointing from one to another in turn.

"Who the fuck are you!?" Safronov yelled back, his accent extremely thick, as he put his hands up. I stepped forward, suddenly incensed.

"What? You're saying you don't remember _me_?" I yelled, standing in front of him. I walked over to the blonde. "Do _you_ remember me? Huh!? Natasha Romanoff ring any bells!?"

I walked over to Antonovich and I saw recognition flicker in his eyes.

"Yes. Yes, you were the budding prodigy. The girl who went missing years ago," he said, his accent just as thick.

"So you _do_ remember. Except you didn't think I was missing. Let's not kid ourselves. You thought I was dead," I said, disturbed by the slight trembling in my voice.

"Death is common to us," Yarmonik, the blonde, finally spoke up.

"That's right. You send thousands of girls out every day to die. Who cares if they come back," I growled, my throat burning.

"We send fighters!" Yarmonik retorted.

"_Girls_! You send _girls_! Little girls! You monsters!" I screamed at a pitch even I didn't think I was capable of. "But I didn't die! I _did_ come back."

I steadied my gun on Safronov on the left. His eyes widened before he clamped them shut.

"No! Open your eyes! Confront your death the way I was ready to do for you when I was seventeen! Open them!" I screamed. The shaking in my voice was back and more pronounced. I told myself it was my anger, all the resentment I'd ever felt welling up in me and tying my throat. He opened his eyes slowly, looking like a miserable coward. My finger readied on the trigger. I tried to tighten it, to shoot, but instead my whole arm seemed to start trembling, making the end of gun shake. I clenched my jaw and tried to tighten my grip to stop the shaking, but it only shook more. No! I couldn't look weak! Not in front of them!

I swung it toward the blonde, Yarmonik, who faced it much more bravely than his colleague. And still, my hand shook ever so slightly. And my finger refused to pull the trigger. WHY!? Frustration stung the back of my eyes. I clenched them shut and turned away with a groan. I didn't look at Clint. I couldn't.

I turned back around, training my gun on the last of them, but still the bullet would not shoot out. The pounding in my head was suddenly unbearable. I willed myself to tighten the trigger, I willed the bullet to come out, I willed them to just die, but none of the above happened.

"God damn it!" I yelled, turning away again. I came up next to Clint, my body facing the exit while his still faced the three men. I closed my eyes tight, my hand searching for Clint's, because he was suddenly my only anchor to reality, the only thing that kept me from slipping into my own personal darkness. His hand welcomed mine, with just the right touch of gentleness and strength, of comfort and security. And he knew. He just knew. I didn't have to tell him, but I felt his body shift as he raised his other arm.

I kept my eyes firmly shut as I heard the three gunshots and three resulting thuds as each of the bodies hit the floor in turn.

"Let's go," he said quietly. I didn't need to be told twice. I needed to get out of there. I let my hand slip from his and rushed out, suddenly wishing I was alone, because I couldn't face him and my shame at the same time. I could hear him behind me but he kept his distance. I was almost sprinting as we exited the building. I inhaled the night air deeply but found no relief. Suddenly, it seemed to smell disgustingly of blood. I continued rushing through the streets, Clint trailing behind me. We barely made the hotel room in time before the tears that had been burning my eyes suddenly erupted.

"Hey! Hey! It's okay!" Clint came toward me, trying to take me in his arms as I choked between sobs and gasps for breath. But it wasn't okay. It just wasn't. Whatever I was, I was not okay. I was broken beyond repair. And the pieces just didn't fit together anymore. They'd broken me and not even their deaths had been able to put me back together.

"It's not okay!" I gasped, trying to wrench away from him, but his strong hands held my arms firmly.

"It is! It is okay. I'm here," he said as I continued my struggles. I looked at him through watery eyes, suddenly feeling a burning hate toward him, too.

"NO! YOU'RE NOT! YOU LEFT ME! YOU _LEFT_ ME! I WAS JUST A GIRL!" I screamed, pounding my fists against his hard chest since I knew all attempts to rip myself from his grip were futile. Every bad, angry, resentful thought I'd ever had about him during my first years at SHIELD suddenly all came rushing back to me, overtaking me like a wave, drowning me in hate and despair and the loneliness of a lost girl.

"You left me!" I kept screaming, over and over, my fists continuing to hit him, hurting me more than I'm sure it hurt him. And he was trying to say something, but I couldn't hear him over the rushing in my ears. Hot tears refused to stop stinging my eyes. I could feel my hair start to fall apart from all my furious twisting and wrenching.

"Tasha! Tasha, listen, please! Natasha!" I dimly heard him say. He clenched his arms around my back, suddenly, locking me to him with my arms pressed between us as he suddenly bowed his head and pressed his lips to mine.

I froze, my eyes left open in surprise, all my shouts dying in my throat. Not a full moment had passed before my eyes slowly closed and I felt my body loosening as if it was melting into his arms. He held me closer, kissing me again, and I welcomed him numbly because I suddenly felt like play-doh in his arms. I wiggled my arms out from between us to move my hands up to the sides of his face, touching him delicately, wary of this new way of touching him. I felt a final tear fall from my shut eyes, but he caught it on my cheek with his lips before holding my head and hugging me to him.

I dug my face into his shoulder, clinging onto him, my only anchor. Here was the place where I was safe, where my darkness couldn't reach me. I realized in that moment just how much I'd grown to need him, this one Clint Barton who'd spared my life.

And it terrified me.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Same disclaimers as Chapter 1.**_

_**A/N:** Sorry for taking so long to update! I am honestly so ashamed I took so long! So here's a chapter, leading up to real big things, and with a guest star. I hope you guys like it. Thank you again and again for your kind reviews. And I hope you forgive me for my dreadful update rate. Enjoy!_

* * *

He held me for a long time, one hand behind my head, one behind my shoulders. And my arms remained wrapped around him, clinging to his broad back.

"I am... _so_ sorry, Tasha," he whispered into my hair. I heard myself whimper feebly into his shoulder. It was a pathetic noise, and I wished desperately it wasn't me that had just made it. But I just could get around the wrenching feeling in my gut that told me I wasn't ready for what he would tell me. I didn't want to hear excuses. Not just now. No, not ever. Because whatever they might be, it would change things. Things were already changing. I felt it with every passing moment I stayed in his arms, as if I could suddenly feel the earth shift beneath me and decide a new axis. But that didn't stop him, and he continued anyway, pushing us closer and closer to a cliff.

"I never left you. _Never_," he said. I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing I could block him out. Because I really, really, _really_ didn't want to hear what he had to say. I knew, with a sort of matter-of-fact sureness, just as the sun would rise, he was about to drop a bombshell. And I felt vulnerable. Defenseless. With absolutely no weapon to fend off his attack.

"Please, Clint. Just don't," I whispered. I wasn't even entirely sure of what I was afraid of hearing.

"No. You need to know. I should have told you so long ago." He pulled me away, but I looked at the floor, a few loose curls hanging lankly around my face. "You might not have seen me, but I was always there, Tasha. Fury made it a condition for me to stay away from you during your parole if you had any chance of living. I was tried for treason and kept under surveillance. They wanted to make sure we weren't accomplices. If I contacted you, we would have both been killed. I am so sorry. I know what you must have thought of me those three years. Just thinking about it kept me up at night."

I bit my tongue to keep my composure, because my knees felt weak and my head was swimming. I took a wobbly step back, but he held himself to me, clutching my hips, falling to his knees in front of me. His brown eyes were wide and crazed as he looked up at me.

"You have to believe me, Tasha, you have to. I'm not a liar! You know I'm not! Every chance I could, I checked in on you, making sure you were okay, making sure you were getting along alright. And you always were. That's what kept me from sending you a message every time I felt weak. I had to remind myself to be strong like you... You were so different from everyone I'd met, Natasha. Bold and fearless. You fascinated me, Tasha. I never forgot about you. I never left you. I was waiting for you for three years, just to be able to talk to you one more time. Because the girl who raised her chin and prepared herself to die deserved an explanation. I swear I never forgot. You have to believe me..."

And I did. In a single moment, I believed him wholeheartedly. Without a single doubt.

He'd gone and done it. He'd thrown us over an edge. The world had shifted. I seemed to see him through new eyes. Hard as it was to wrap my head around, I now saw him as someone who had been as troubled by our separation as I had, instead of the vision of total disregard and carelessness I'd previously imagined. The idea was both comforting and unnerving. And I suddenly realized why I hadn't wanted him to say anything moments ago. I'd just received the answer I'd been waiting years for, but I hadn't wanted to listen because it meant facing a truth I'd been choosing to overlook since I'd arrived at SHIELD six years ago. And now that truth was slapping me in the face, demanding to be dealt with.

The truth was I cared.

I'd broken the first rule of my job: _don't _get emotions involved! The moment Clint had lowered his gun, I'd cared. I cared when he had disappeared. I cared when he suddenly appeared out of nowhere as if by magic. I cared when he'd chosen to mentor me. I cared about why he'd left. I cared that he trusted me. I cared when he turned everyone down to stay with me. I cared that he cared too. I cared that he was my partner. I cared more about his life than my own. I'd been trying to pretend so long that I didn't give a damn about anything, especially not "that good-for-nothing shady-ass Clint Barton," but I did.

I cared about _him_.

"I believe you," I said, so quietly I thought he might not have heard me. But he did. He looked up at me with new-found life as if I'd just thrown him a lifeline he hadn't bothered to hope for anymore. I surprised even myself when I leaned down to gently brush back his hair and place a delicate kiss on his forehead. "It's okay. I believe you," I whispered again.

He closed his eyes slowly as if he thought this was too good to be true. Maybe it was. Maybe I was dreaming. I did seem to be feeling strangely out-of-body, as if a stranger had taken over for me and I was simply watching, a detached third party. I didn't feel like myself. I felt shaky and weak, like I'd just thrown up.

I finally disentangled myself from Clint's arms, pulling myself away gently and turning without a word. He didn't argue. I walked silently to the bathroom, feeling Clint's gaze heavy on my back. I know he didn't want to leave me, but he didn't follow. He knew I needed to be left alone. He understood. Always without reprimands or questions. Just acceptance. He just _understood_.

I turned on the faucet to fill the tub and was glad I did that first because I bent over to throw up into the toilet immediately after, and I thought the running water covered up the noise quite well. I sat with my head between my shaky knees for a while after before finally undressing and slipping into the scalding water. My mind was a mess and, much to my disappointment, the hot water did little to knock me back into my senses.

I knew beyond the door, Clint was waiting for me. Waiting to ambush me with "a talk." Because there was always "a talk" after big changes. But I couldn't deal with it. I couldn't deal with his "talk," and I couldn't deal with his eyes that shone as if Jesus had just been reborn when I said I forgave him, and I couldn't deal with the residual tingling on my lips from his kiss that had set my bones on fire.

All of the above were side-effects of caring. And I couldn't deal with it.

The water cooled but I still couldn't bring myself to leave the bathroom so I drained the tub and filled it again with hot water. My mind drifted to the three faces of the Triad members, the ones I'd looked in the eyes and had been unable to kill because the threat of darkness in those eyes had been too much to bear. My chest tightened with rage and burning shame. I clenched my eyes shut and slipped underwater, wishing I'd go ahead and just die already.

I refilled the tub three times total before finally telling myself to stop being such a coward and go out to face him. Even so, I still dried myself slowly, brushed my hair with painstaking care, dressed myself with unnecessary absorption. Even I knew I was being ridiculous, but I couldn't quite help it. Finally, I forced myself out.

Only to find that—though he seemed to have put up a good fight, given by the fact he was still fully dressed in his tuxedo and the remote hanging loosely in his hand hadn't turned off the television he'd been watching—Clint had unavoidably fallen asleep. His chest was rising and falling slowly, his face the perfect image of peace and innocence. I found myself smiling at him, wishing nothing more than to climb up next to him, rest my head on his chest, and let his steady heartbeats rock me to sleep. I stood there, at the foot of his bed, torn by the sudden fervent desire to touch him, feel him, wrap myself up in his warmth; to wake him up and tell him over and over that it was okay, everything was okay, so long as he never disappeared again, because then I'd surely shatter like a broken mirror; to let him know it was _only_ okay when he was around because he was my only protection against a darkness that threatened to pull me under any moment; to let him kiss me until I was dizzy and make sure his stupid, self-satisfied smirk was the last thing I saw before going to sleep myself.

Understandably, I did the only thing a girl like me could think to do. I ran.

* * *

I knew time was of the essence. I only had a few hours before he woke up, realized I was gone, and came looking after me. Just a few hours before he realized I'd gone and run off with his kiss still fresh on my lips. I decided I was forbidden to think about that.

I ran out the door with only my most necessary belongings, leaving him sleeping peacefully on his bed, completely unaware, while I took the first plane home. I spent the entire flight telling myself not to think about what he would think the moment he woke up, and thinking of nothing else as a result. My throat seemed tied in a permanent knot. Even breathing suddenly seemed extremely difficult. I was unusually fidgety, my hands twisting over themselves in a never-ending loop. I arrived at SHIELD in a flurry of anxiety and impatience, the same feeling of being pursued and knowing you just _had_ to move faster if you didn't want to be overtaken.

"I—You're back!" was the first thing Maria said when I burst into her new little office in the administration building. It was clean and neat and held an air of efficiency. Very Maria.

She jumped up immediately and hugged me, her joy at seeing me seeming to override the fact that I shouldn't have been back for another few days.

"I need a favor," I said immediately. She pulled back.

"Of course! Anything," she said eagerly, though her smile seemed to falter the longer she studied me. "Are you alright?"

I dug deeper than I would have thought possible to conjure up a smile. "Of course," I said easily.

One of her eyebrows twitched up an infinitesimal amount: she didn't believe me. Her eyes narrowed slightly but she smiled anyway, as if to say, "Alright, I'll play along."

"Well, then what do you need?"

"I need a mission. Now. The farther, the better," I said, not able to fully conceal my restlessness. She gave me an odd look before circling back around her desk and sitting at her computer, beginning to type immediately. I sat uneasily in one of the chairs in front of her desk. Sitting had the definitive feeling of doing nothing, making no progress forward, falling farther and farther back with each passing second so that your pursuer might catch up at any moment. I swallowed my anxiety and sat anyway.

Maria was clicking away at her computer, biting the side of her cheek. "We don't really have anything right now. I mean, nothing _good_."

"Anything, give me anything," I interjected, causing her to look up suspiciously.

"All we really have right now is recon and I know—"

"I'll take it," I said, jumping up almost at once. She turned away from her computer, studying me closely.

"Are you sure you're okay?" she asked. "Where's Clint, anyway?"

My jaw clenched. The simple mention of his name took me back thousands of miles to where I was sure he still lay asleep, each second that ticked by bringing him closer and closer to consciousness and the truth.

"He stayed back to finish up the paperwork and whatever." I shrugged with what I hoped looked like nonchalance. "I just went ahead."

Maria's face didn't change but I could read it as clear as day that she didn't believe me. I cleared my throat uneasily.

"But you're both okay, right?" she asked, a trace of worry painting her voice. I met her eyes.

"Yes, we're both okay... But when he comes, he's probably going to ask for me. You have to promise not to tell him where I am, okay?" I said ardently, trying to tell her without words that everything was fine but she just shouldn't ask questions. Not this time. "Promise!"

She got the picture. "Okay, okay, I promise! My lips are sealed." She turned back to her computer. "Well, if you're in such a hurry—"

"I am," I cut in, making her look at me suspiciously again. I bit my tongue. "So, uh, where am I headed?"

She scrolled on her computer before finally stopping. "Oh, I've got a treat for you."

I doubted anything she had could possibly be a treat for me right now, but I looked up curiously anyway. "Where?"

"Malibu." She grinned, as if that explained itself. If it did, I didn't get it.

"What's in Malibu?"

* * *

Tony Stark. That's what was in Malibu.

I flicked through the mission file I'd picked up, eager to busy my mind with work. The overview promised this to be simple character profiling recon. Easy. I'd known nothing of Tony Stark as a girl and up until I'd looked through his file, had only general knowledge of him, like the fact he was the heir to the top weapons manufacturing company in the world as well as the son of one of the original SHIELD founders. Most importantly, however, he had recently shook the world by coming out as Iron Man with a weapon-equipped metal suit the entire world was dying to get their hands on.

I set the folder down on my lap, closing my eyes and rubbing my temples. I was suddenly exhausted, and only then realized I hadn't slept in two days. I hadn't had time at base, either. I'd hurriedly gone back to my room in the agent living quarters to throw my things down and pack new clothes before going to pick up the mission file I had lying in my lap now, and jumping on the next jet out of there. I hadn't been at base more than two hours total. I was long gone when Maria came to my lonely room during her lunch break to invite me for some coffee and a little catch-up. And I was already touching down in Malibu when Clint arrived at base in a frenzy hours later, still wearing the blood-splattered tuxedo from the night before, his hair uncombed and his eyes haggard, asking anyone he could get his hands on whether they had seen me. No one had.

* * *

Two days later, I found myself dressed in a button-down shirt and dark pencil skirt, my long curls nicely brushed, my heels clicking rhythmically as I made my way up to the entrance of Tony Stark's grand home on the edge of an ocean cliff. I'd donned the name of Natalie Rushman, ready to fill the position of assistant to Tony Stark now that Pepper Potts had been promoted to CEO of Stark Industries. It was easy to forget who I was when I took on a new name and immersed myself in research for a new mission, but this time, I couldn't quite get out of my head completely. And I knew why. It was Clint. Clint kept me tethered. But I gave it my best effort anyway because remembering proved to be too painful to deal with.

I rang the doorbell to the large house, idly speculating on how fast time could pass, how fast things could change, how fast I could suddenly find myself on the other side of the world if I wanted to. I was admitted quickly, clutching a folder with fake paperwork Stark was supposed to sign. I was led to what appeared to be a large gym, the room empty except for three people, all of which I recognized from pictures in my mission overview. Sitting a little to the side, flicking through papers, was the redheaded Virginia "Pepper" Potts. Circling each other in a boxing ring was the famous Tony Stark and Harold Hogan, his bodyguard and chauffeur. Almost all at once, all the eyes in the room turned to me curiously. Pepper stood at once, obviously recognizing me as the new "assistant", and coming over to shake my hand. She had a friendly, freckled face and the same air of efficiency that reminded me of Maria.

"Tony, this is Natalie Rushman, our new assistant," Pepper said, approaching the ring. Tony looked at me idly. He was as handsome as his pictures promised, with the iconic beard that men across the country were donning in his honor. His dark hair was currently plastered to his face with sweat, and through his thin shirt, I could see the icy blue glow of the infamous device in his chest that was keeping him alive: the arc reactor.

"In the ring. Now," he said. Pepper sighed.

"No, Tony, not now," she said, but he had already turned away, looking at me closely as if to see if I would rise to the challenge.

"Come on, get in."

"I'm sorry, he gets like this sometimes—"

I smiled easily at her. "It's fine." I ducked through the ropes into the ring. Tony seemed impressed.

"Mr. Stark," I said, "I have these papers for you to sign."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll take those. Miss Rushman, this is Harold Hogan. Get acquainted. I'll be right back," he said, taking my folder and ducking out of the ring.

"Um, alright," I said to no one in particular. But Harold seemed to understand.

"You get used to him. Wanna go for a round?" he grinned, giving me an appraising look. "I'll go easy on you."

I fought back a snort. "Okay," I said innocently.

* * *

"That was fun, thank you, Harold," I said as I pulled myself off him. I'd brought him down easily by hooking my thighs around his neck and throwing my weight around him. It was my preferred way of bringing down big fellas. He coughed, obviously trying to recover his breath. I ducked out of the ring, seeing both Pepper and Tony staring at me with wide eyes.

"I'll take those, if you're done with them," I said, gesturing toward the papers in Pepper's hands. She handed them to me with a vague smile. I gave them both my most winning smile before turning on my heel and exiting.

I was almost at the door when I heard Tony whisper behind me, "I want one."

I rolled my eyes. He wished.

* * *

Such was what my life became in the months I was set to observe Tony Stark. He acted, for all intents and purposes, like a self-proclaimed rock star, complete with the cockiness, the mood swings, and the parties. And people just ate it up because he was the world's first brand of superhero. Besides, the wit and cockiness and sarcasm just seemed fitting of him. I learned quickly to stay on my toes when addressing him—he wasn't a fan of stupid people—and when at all possible, give him what he wanted. When it wasn't possible, I just had to try harder.

When he was being particularly hard to manage, which was often, Pepper always helped plenty. She was easy to get along with, probably in part because she reminded me so much of Maria. She seemed to be the only coolant to Tony's fire. On bad days, I had to wonder how she was able to handle it for so many years. I finally realized why when Tony was attacked on an Italian racetrack by some vengeful Russian named Vanko. I saw the answer in Pepper's eyes when we'd rushed Tony's bruised body to a hospital, much to his displeasure. She looked at him, her eyes flooding with relief that he was simply alive enough to complain and I just knew; she was in love with him.

I thought her stupid at first, silly for falling victim to that ultimate weakness. But the sudden thought of Clint cut off my condescending thoughts before I was even done thinking them, like a mother reprimanding an unruly child. And then I thought _myself_ stupid. Because I wasn't in love with Clint so it didn't matter anyway and I could think whatever I wanted to think.

But I didn't. From then on, whenever I saw Pepper looking at Tony like that, I couldn't help feeling a pang of sympathy for her.

Time passed, sometimes dragging, sometimes speeding before I had a chance to note what day it was, but pass it did. The nightmares came back. The nightmares from my childhood. Darkness. Drowning. Screams that cut off when I suddenly ran out of air and suffocated. Haunting whispers. A sea of blood that stained my hands and refused to let me arrive at any shore. A crushing weight on my back of all the bodies I was accountable for. And the taunting laughter of the three men I hadn't been able to kill. It eventually got to point where I was sitting up in bed, gasping for air, every damn night. And of course, I never forgot Clint. Not for a moment. I'd find myself staring at my phone on those nights, teetering on the edge of calling him, finding him, running to him wherever he might be. Until I threw my phone across the room and told myself he hated me now. Clint, who had thought me bold and fearless. What would he think of me now?

That's when Clint started starring in my nightmares. Dying at the hands of some unknown villain because I was too late to save him or taking me in his arms and killing me himself. And nothing I did to fill up my waking hours could quite wipe those images from my mind. No amount of alcohol in my veins, no amount of focus on my work, no amount of new hands on my body. Nothing could quite do the trick. I still woke up screaming every night.

Sometimes I screamed for him.

* * *

My mission could have been completed much sooner except that I didn't really want to finish it. Because I was never quite sure what I would be returning to. The actual reconnaissance was as easy as the overview promised. One thing was clear, anyway. Whatever this "Avengers Initiative" was that SHIELD was cooking up, Tony just didn't fit into the equation. He was egotistical, and reckless, and just didn't play well with others. My little recon mission went astray, however, when thousands of Iron Man droid wannabes suddenly took the streets, bent on killing people, and the mission became a matter of national security just like so many others. I again donned my agent get-up and clicked my widow belt back around my waist. It felt comforting. Like gaining back a tiny bit of myself when I so often felt like a shell nowadays.

My cover was blown, of course, and once the violent droids were finished, I knew I was headed back to SHIELD. I was almost sorry because I'd grown to like Tony. I had a feeling we were more alike than we both cared to admit. Plus, he'd won some points when he finally admitted he loved Pepper, too. I liked them together. Tony wasn't as bad as he liked people to think. They deserved each other.

But in all honesty, my real anxiety was going back and running into _him_, my ally and adversary and savior and destroyer.

* * *

I found myself on a jet back to SHIELD faster than I would have thought possible; too fast for my taste, anyway.

"Maria?"

"He's not here," she immediately answered, and I felt the breath go out of me. But I felt completely empty. Both relieved and disappointed. She'd gotten used to these calls because no matter how strongly I'd fought against contacting him, I'd been weak in calling Maria for information about him.

"I need a new mission," I said, trying to pretend that wasn't why I had called. But we both knew that was a lie and I could almost see Maria rolling her eyes.

"Something just opened up, actually. Not recon. Although you have pretty good luck with that, huh?" she said, joking about the fact that a national crisis had still somehow followed me on my "little recon mission."

"I'll take whatever," I told her blandly, staring out the plane window at a darkening sky.

"You'll get your hands dirty," she warned. Lately, she seemed to have gotten into the idea that I wasn't prepared or emotionally stable for actual fighting missions. Maybe I wasn't, but it was a good distraction. Anyway, I'd helped save the world not three days ago, so I think I deserved a little credit.

"It's never stopped me before," I answered coolly. "Where am I headed?"

I heard her clicking away at her computer for a few moments before she answered.

"Budapest."


	7. Chapter 7

**_Same disclaimers at Chapter 1._**

_**A/N:** Again and again, I want to thank all my readers and reviewers. The amazing amount of positive support I've gotten from you all is astounding and I thank you for it immensely! It really does inspire me to keep going! I'm writing this all for you guys!_

_Now, I know I left you guys hanging in that last chapter, and you must all hate me, so I wrote a nice long chapter for you guys. It's the longest one yet, and I hope you guys will be able to appreciate why once you finish reading! Enjoy!_

* * *

I was vaguely aware of the perspiration dewing at my hairline and felt it start to trickle slowly down the back of my neck. I didn't chance a stop to catch my breath. I couldn't just now. I was already so close. So I continued my hurried jog down a hall that seemed to stretch forever, ignoring the stifling smell of dust threatening to choke me. It smelled old—if old can be said to have a scent—like still air that hadn't been stirred in too long. Gravel and debris crunched beneath my boots, common in buildings that had fallen into disrepair such as this one. The hall was dark, the walls shedding their last strokes of aged paint. I was tired, oh, so tired, and was just starting to consider stopping when a wild cry pierced the silent air like a knife, cutting into my ears painfully with its familiarity. I sped up, breaking into a flat-out sprint, suddenly panicked, sure I'd heard it coming from the door at the end of the hall, the only door I could see, in fact. Maybe it was fatigue that made it seem as though it was backing away even further with each step I took. But I had to reach it, I had to get to it, I had to move _faster._ My breath came in harsh pants, sweat now coating me entirely, my blood pumping loudly in my ears, a sudden knot tying my throat painfully. I was close, I was so close, I would be there in a second, I had to make it, I—

Slammed into the room just as the knife slit his throat.

"_CLINT!" _I cried wildly, snapping up in bed so rapidly my head swam. My own scratchy shriek still vibrated in my ears as I tried to fight off the sudden wave of vertigo and nausea. I looked around with bleary eyes, trying to regain my grip on reality even as my heart continued to race, sweat sticking my threadbare sleep shirt to my body.

"You are alive, you are okay, you were just dreaming," I reminded myself out loud, a habit I'd quickly fallen into after the nightmares began. "You are alive, you are okay, you were just dreaming. You are alive, you are okay, you were just dreaming."

I blinked, forcing myself to believe it, dragging myself out of my own nightmares. It had gotten more difficult with time. "You are alive, you are okay, you were just dreaming. You are in a hotel in Budapest, not in an endless hallway in an abandoned building, and you are alive, you are okay, you were just dreaming."

I continued to chant my little mantra to myself, taking care to count my breaths until my breathing slowed. Just going through the motions. I tended to forget things when I was in this state. Like how and when to breathe.

I looked around again. Rain was falling in earnest outside, pattering aggressively against the fancy glass balcony door the hotel room provided. The suite was spacious and lavishly decorated in tones of white and beige with touches of red. It would have been a beautiful room except the red accents reminded me too much of splashes of blood, as if someone had just had their brains blown out on the white furniture.

I got shakily out of bed, a sudden clap of thunder almost knocking me off my wobbly feet. I gritted my teeth and stomped to the bathroom, feeling particularly pitiful and pathetic. I filled myself a glass of water and drank slowly, reminding myself to swallow, to breathe, to set the cup down—_without _excessive force because last time, that had ended with glass shards in my palm. I gripped the counter as the pain in my head ebbed, staring at my feet because I knew the mirror before me would show exactly what I didn't want to see. But I was a masochist and looked up anyway, slowly taking in the image in the glass of the shell I'd become.

Thin face, pale skin, dark circles under my eyes, hair knotted and tangled from all the thrashing nightmares entailed. This is what the fabulous Natasha Romanoff, assassin wonder, became at night: a worn down, shattered shell. During the daytime, I could plaster on makeup and a smile and get the job done, but this was the life I lived when no one was watching.

I gritted my teeth, hating myself with every ounce of life I had left, hating the pathetic mess I'd become, a walking disaster of pain and fury and shame and fear. I hated—_loathed _the girl in the mirror with tears already threatening to spill over. When had I ever been known to cry so much before?

"You're weak! You're pathetic!" I yelled at the top of my lungs, infuriated when the girl yelled them right back. She was the weak one! She was the pathetic one! I'd show her! I yanked open the bathroom drawer to my right, my hands curling around the first object they encountered—a thick brush—and hurled it with all my force at the mirror, making it shatter into a thousand pieces and splintering the image of the girl. I dropped the brush, trying to remember to breathe again. I ran my fingers through my hair but they only got tangled in the twisted mat. I groaned, pulling and tugging my fingers through the hair stubbornly, not caring as delicate strings of long red hair fell on the white tile. I did it again and again, pulling and yanking it until I pulled the drawer open again, this time digging through it until my hands closed around the cold metal of a pair of large fabric scissors. Ten pairs of the girl's eyes stared at me from the shattered mirror as I tugged the whole train of hair around one shoulder and haphazardly cut through it, the long thick locks falling to the floor with what seemed to me overly dramatic slowness.

I stepped back blindly so it wouldn't fall on my feet, instead stepping on the shattered glass. I yelled out in sudden pain, stumbling back only to step on more glass, already smearing blood on the floor. I tiptoed to the bathtub, sitting on its edge with my head between my knees, again having to remind myself to breathe. I picked out the glass shards slowly until they were all out but didn't bother to bandage my feet. I jumped over the broken glass and made my wobbly way back to bed, tracking blood on the white carpet.

Note to self: do not use excessive force on the mirror, results in shards of glass in feet.

I curled back into bed, reminding myself to breathe, reminding myself I was alive, I was okay, I was just dreaming. Just dreaming. Just dreaming...

* * *

Everything seems surreal in the morning. I could wake up anywhere from one to six times in a night, but when morning came around, I always woke with the sense I'd dreamnt it all, even the episodes in between. I was never sure. Just as I was never able to recognize when I was in a dream even though I'd been visiting that endless hall at night for over a month now, always bounding through that door just in time to see Clint fall victim to some new torture.

I only knew it wasn't a dream when I found evidence, this time in the form of sheets soaked in scarlet at my feet and red splotches on the carpet. I grimaced. It fit in perfectly with the decor.

I tried to remember the rest of the night, and with a sudden jerk, reached around my back. With horror, I realized what I was feeling. Nothing. At the small of my back, where I'd known the end of my curls to rest, there was nothing. My hand inched higher, higher, until finally meeting the blunt ends of my hair lying on my shoulder blades. So that hadn't been a dream either. I felt a scream well up in me and had to fight hard to swallow it back, because the sun had risen and that meant it was time to get my shitty semblance of a life together and pretend everything was okay. I had someone to be in the daytime, a role to play, a purpose to fill the empty shell. Only when the light fell away did my tenacity go with it.

I closed my eyes, breathing deeply, asking myself what Natasha Romanoff would do. Natasha was the one good at decision making, and it always took me a while to slide back into her skin in the morning. I tended to forget we were the same person sometimes, because most of the time, I just didn't feel like anything.

In the end, I bandaged my feet, cleaned up the mess, and brushed gingerly through what had been my mane of red. Once untangled, I saw the gravity of my destruction. It was frighteningly uneven, one side still managing to rest on my back while the other barely grazed my shoulder. I sighed, pulling it into a ponytail and deciding I didn't trust myself to try and correct it.

* * *

"My god, sweetheart, what happened to you!?" exclaimed a flamboyant hair dresser in rapid Hungarian when I pulled my hair from its disguising ponytail. I'd found a chic little salon just two blocks from the hotel and decided I didn't really have the energy to try and find anything else.

"I lost a bet," I replied tonelessly in equally fluent Hungarian. He fingered through my remaining curls with a heartbroken sadness and an almost comical sigh as he sat me down in a chair. He had various pictures of hair models taped to his mirror. I stared at one, feeling the resolution settle into me and deciding before I could change my mind.

"Make me look like her," I said, pointing at one. He stared from it to me, an eyebrow raised, before a sudden excited grin spread across his face.

"Yes, alright, you'll look fabulous, sweetheart," he said, already starting to comb through my hair eagerly.

"Wait. Turn me around. I don't want to see," I told him. He nodded understandingly, giving me a smile as if we'd just shared a secret, and swung me around. I closed my eyes, wishing I could tune out the snipping sound of his scissors.

He turned me around an hour later, and I had to admit, he had done a good job. The haircut even managed to make my thin face seem fuller and healthier, even a little rosy. It was as long as he could've possibly managed—just above my shoulders—and the curls framing my face were now a striking platinum blonde.

"You look beautiful," he'd sighed dreamily. I smiled at him, not feeling beautiful at all.

* * *

"Oh, my God! What did you do!?" Maria yelled into the phone by way of greeting, not two minutes after I'd sent her a text telling her I needed new false passports and IDs. I sat up from the bed in the hotel room.

"I—uh… I'm blonde," I replied simply, not quite believing it even as I said it.

"Blon—_what_?" she stammered with a half-laugh, not believing me either. "You're not."

"I am," I said, trying for an easy tone. It seemed crucial to act my most normal to Maria, because she seemed to care for me the most. And she didn't deserve worry in repayment.

"What, why? How?"

"I guess I just needed a change," I replied, adding in an airy laugh.

"Oh, man. Well, send me the picture!" she said, laughing too. "You couldn't wait until after the mission?"

"I guess not… Maria?"

A moment's pause. She'd noted the change in my voice. She knew what was coming, but she waited anyway. "Yes?"

I swallowed hard, feeling like I'd traveled back in time. Back to when I was seventeen, young and scared, asking Maria for the first time what had happened to Clint since I'd been dropped off like luggage.

"How is he?" I managed to choke out. My throat felt tight and the words seemed to cut on the way out. I heard Maria sigh. I'd never told her why I had suddenly decided to leave Clint that day that I showed up in her office…what had it been? A year ago? _Already_?

I'd never explained, no matter how many times she'd asked, but at least she seemed to have kept her promise of secrecy. But sometimes, based on the things she said, I had the feeling she'd made a few inferences of her own. And most of them were probably correct.

"He's fine," she said blandly. I knew I wasn't going to get more out of her. She might have kept her promise, but I knew she didn't think it was fair of me to hide from him. Whatever. I didn't care. I got what I needed.

"Alright, talk to you later," I said, hanging up abruptly as if that hadn't just happened and going to my laptop to send her the passport pictures I'd already taken. I stared at them, feeling more detached from myself than ever. The girl with the blank face and blonde hair in the picture, she really could be anyone. A complete stranger. Certainly not the girl with long dark red curls that had melted like candle wax in the arms of her archer. The distinction had never felt so clear, and the fact they were the same person, and that person was me, _that _seemed to be the false reality.

* * *

I felt the cold metal of the blade I had strapped to my thigh under my champagne-colored dress. I kept tapping it and told myself to stop. Nervous tics were not acceptable. The sun was going down, but I still had a job to do. Tonight, I was working late. Tonight, Natasha had to stick around.

I tipped my balding cab driver generously as he pulled to a stop in front of the Gundel Restaurant, crowds of lavishly dressed people filing in. I got out of the cab, and had the immediate feeling these people could sniff out a secondhand handkerchief if it came into their midst. But I blended in perfectly with my expensive dress and had finally got the hang of my newly shortened hair enough to be able to pin it up. No one gave me a second look.

"Right this way, Miss Rushman," a waiter said to me in accented English immediately. My slightly foreign bone structure seemed to have been toned down with my new blonde hair; that, and the fact I'd taken on my previous alias, Natalie Rushman, for the night made me appear positively American. I guess I couldn't blame him for assuming, though I found myself slightly bothered.

He guided me through the sea of white linen tables, chatter and the clink of wine glasses echoing all around us, until he stopped short in front of the smallest table they offered, and pulled the chair out for me. I thanked him as he handed me a menu with a winning smile and hurried away. I opened it but let my eyes rove over the top of it. I wasn't here to eat.

A few tables diagonally from me, I saw why I was here. Ernö Gaspár, the new king of the Hungarian drug cartel, was sitting at a large table, a few men in suits on one side—presumably to talk about "business"—and his blonde wife and two dark-haired children, both boys, on the other. How sweet. He'd brought his human shield out tonight.

He'd probably been bringing them out a lot lately. His rise to cartel royalty had left a bloody trail of death all over the city, and his competition was not happy. Rumors of an all-out gang war were flying everywhere. No wonder he'd picked a busy place like this to meet. Lots of witnesses, lots of protection. He was no fool. Though he was younger than I expected, tall and dark-haired, and apparently very amused at what one of his colleagues had just said. His wife was staring vaguely at the lot of them with a polite smile plastered on, and the two young boys, completely engrossed in their own world, were entertaining themselves by throwing asparagus onto each other's plates.

I grinned. It'd be easy enough to wait until they left, creep up behind them through the crowd and get a shot at Gaspár before he exited the building, where hoards of his henchmen would surely be waiting at the ready, ever watchful. And in the ensuing chaos, I'd slip away, unnoticed. Easy.

Maybe I'd have a chance for some dinner, after all.

"Miss Rushman." The cheerful waiter was back, grinning as if he had great news. "Your date is here!" he said, gesturing behind me.

"My _date_?" I repeated stupidly, turning around in my chair to see Clint Barton striding through the tables toward me, strong and handsome, wearing a tuxedo strikingly similar to the one from our last night together, as if no time had passed between then and now.

I felt my breath catch somewhere between my throat and stomach, right around where my heart might have been.

I watched him walk around the small square table and take a seat in the empty chair across from me, accepting the menu the waiter was offering him with a dazzling smile.

"Good evening, Tasha," he said once the waiter had darted away, opening the menu and looking through it with interest. His nickname cut through me like a knife. How many times had I dreamt it, heard him calling it desperately for me?

I still couldn't manage to swallow the knot in my throat so I opened my menu and hid behind it until I managed to choke out, "Good evening."

I blinked hard, willing myself to wake up. This had to be a dream. It had to. And any moment, someone would swoop down on Clint, and I'd be forced to watch him die once again.

"Your hair's shorter," he commented without emotion, strongly reminiscent of how he'd commented on my hair's length when he'd appeared after my graduation. "And _blonde_."

His tone made me look up, but he still appeared to be looking through the menu intently. Even so, I could see a poorly-disguised intensity in his eyes, like faraway thunder, that I was sure wasn't aimed at the risotto.

I swallowed, realizing he didn't like it, the hair. And I felt foolish when a burning embarrassment colored my cheeks, suddenly ashamed of my rash decision to color my hair just because he was displeased. I shook it off, suddenly angry. It was always easier to just be angry at him. I'd learned that the first time I met him.

"So it is," I said with cool pride, but my eyes still inadvertently flitted down to my own menu when I felt his flick to me. He looked back to his menu after a moment, and I chanced another look at him. If this was a dream, I really did remember everything about him. From his strong frame all the way down to the light freckles on his nose. His hair was neatly cut, parted on the side and brushed like he always did for special occasions. It made him look like an adorable grown-up boy scout in a suit.

"Why are you here?" I blurted out at him before I could stop myself. He closed his menu and finally looked up at me. And I could see it wasn't just faraway thunder in his eyes. It was a storm, a tempest, a hurricane of anger and rage and betrayal and hurt.

"_Why did you leave?_" he countered, his voice shaking, no longer the practiced tone of mild politeness. And that shut me right up. I almost felt myself pressed into the cushion of my seat by the force of his gaze. I looked away.

"I had to."

"You _had_ to?" he repeated incredulously. "You _had_ to disappear overnight, _literally_ overnight, without a word?"

"You did, didn't you?" I answered fiercely, suddenly defensive.

"_I _had no choice," he replied through gritted teeth. And again, I found myself speechless. Because he was right. No one twisted my arm, no one's life was depending on my choice. I just… left. I floundered for something to say, anything, but nothing seemed to be making sense right now.

"Did Maria tell you I was here?" I asked, suddenly feeling like I was being attacked from all sides. He scoffed.

"Maria. I don't know what you told her, but it worked, because she didn't tell me a thing," he said bitterly. "But I had a few favors to call in here and there. It took me a while, but I finally got it. Got your mission file and saw you'd ran off to Budapest. And then I show up here, and I see you walk in, tall and beautiful and_ blonde_—of all things!"

I looked away, feeling my cheeks flame and not being able to decide if it was because of the trouble he'd gone to find me or because he'd just called me beautiful. I let my eyes wander, looking anywhere except at his eyes, and settling on Gaspár's table—which was now entirely empty!

"God damn it!" I yelled, throwing my napkin on the table and springing up. Clint turned, obviously also noticing they were gone and following behind me.

So much for dinner.

* * *

We ran out into the busy street just as Gaspár's car turned a corner.

"Fuck!" I yelled loudly, making a few elderly women nearby start with indignation.

"Come on, this way!" Clint said, taking my hand as he pulled up behind me, and pulling me across the street and then into an alley. He let me go immediately when we made it into the darkness of the alley. He ran to the other end of it and I paused only long enough to remove my heels before following him. He scanned the street before darting across into another alley. I followed without questioning. We were not halfway through the other alley before we heard several gunshots and the deafening sound of scraping metal. Clint and I looked at each other for only a moment before breaking into sprints. At the mouth of the alley, we were greeted with the sight of Gaspár's shiny black car crashed against the side of a brick building, a crowd already gathering around it. We pushed through the people to find the chauffeur shot dead, hanging limply on the steering wheel, the rest of the car completely empty. A decoy. Gaspár must be really paranoid because he was taking all the precautions he could.

Clint pulled me away from the crowd. "They know this a decoy. They'll be chasing all the possible cars he could have gone in. He could have gone anywhere."

The sudden sound of screeching tires made us turn in time to see a car make a haphazard u-turn, followed by three more black cars. Clint and I looked at each other.

"That's a start," I said.

The crowd had thickened enough to stop traffic and Clint ran to the first car, a tiny European thing. He opened the door and pulled out the driver with a hurried "We need your car." The man promptly started cursing as I dropped into the passenger seat, but his voice was soon lost over the sound of Clint revving the engine, putting the car in reverse, and backing all the way out of the street, causing much yelling and a commotion of honking.

Traffic was dense and it didn't help that streets in Europe were much smaller than American ones. With a lot of dodging, and a whole lot more honking, we managed to get behind the chase as it wove farther and farther out of the main city, into the smaller and quieter side streets of the old city. With one hand still on the wheel, Clint lowered the window on my side. Without asking, I immediately pulled a gun from the small purse I'd been carrying and leaned out the window. I heard a few shots clang off metal but one was answered with the satisfying sound of a popped tire, causing one of the cars to swerve off and crash. I aimed for the other but a sharp turn made the shot go wide.

Ahead of us, we saw another large black car pull in front of the street opening, Gaspár's car crashing into it before it had time to brake. Clint pulled into an alley at the last moment, the sound of more crashing telling us the car in front of us hadn't been so lucky.

"Here," he said, handing me a gun from one of his side holsters. I readily took it and jumped out of the car. We ran into the street in time to see dark figures darting every which way. We shot a few, but the rest disappeared.

"Lovely night for a dinner date, huh?" he muttered, running to collect whatever arms the men we'd shot down had. He threw another gun at me before ducking into a side street. It was quiet, suddenly. Extremely quiet.

As we inched across a wall, I idly thought how it easy it felt to be around him again. Time hadn't seemed to change that. I knew he was furious, and I was a corpse of who I'd been before, but we still fit together like two parts of a well-oiled machine.

"You didn't have to come," I heard myself whispering in the quiet, and not really knowing why I was saying it. That made him look back at me, an eyebrow raised. He shook his head.

"Yes, I did."

I wanted to ask why, but bullets seemed to rain down on us suddenly from nowhere, sending us ducking behind a dumpster. Clint took out a man that had decided to poke around a corner at the wrong time and I shot a figure that had been hiding on the building beside us.

"How about no more talking?" Clint said after, his voice uncharacteristically cold. Fired shots echoed from a few blocks down, and then some more on the opposite side. I started running down one way while Clint started scaling a building. I didn't ask. He always liked a view from above.

A man in a suit ran into the street from an alley, almost crashing into me. He seemed surprised by my presence but didn't hesitate to start throwing punches, knocking me pretty hard on the head before I tripped him and shot him in the head. Poor bastard.

Yells in Hungarian suddenly filled the air, more shots fired. Then out of nowhere, the ground shook, an explosion echoing from nearby. Grenades, probably. These guys must be desperate for a kill. Mobsters usually weren't so messy.

"Hawkeye?" I yelled out, wary of using our code names while enemies were nearby. No answer. Instead, three men burst out from another side street and another behind. Fuck. I shot wildly, backing against a wall. One fell just as another burst into the scene. This one, however, seemed to be one of Gaspár's guards, because he started shooting the men around me. When faced with me, he hesitated, obviously confused at the sight of a blonde in a dress pressed up against a wall. But it was enough of a hesitation for me to fire. His mistake.

I ran the opposite way from which the men came, taking sharp turns when yells told me more were nearby. I was low on bullets and wasn't about to pick a fight I wasn't sure I could win. I rounded a corner and heard Hungarian murmuring. I ran across just as one of the four men looked up and yelled out in surprise. I shot him squarely in the forehead, but the other three had already started running after me. I weaved across the street, hearing bullets whiz by.

"Hawkeye!" I yelled, louder this time. I turned long enough to shoot one down, his body falling in front of another and making him face plant into the concrete. The resounding crunch was not pleasant. I turned a corner and felt my stomach drop. A dead end. A perfect brick wall. I turned as the other man ran in behind me, a grin spreading across his face. I shot at him and the gun clicked empty. I figured I had nothing to do with it so I threw it at him, hitting him in the forehead. He cursed loudly, steadying his gun, and I knew I wouldn't have enough time to reach for my knife.

The sound of flapping fabric made us both look up just as Clint jumped from a roof, landing lithely in front of me, shooting the man in his moment of shock. He turned to me, his eyes urgent.

"We need to get out of here. They're everywhere," he said, not bothering to distinguish who "they" was. Whatever side they were on, they would both kill us. "Come on."

He turned and started running, dodging and weaving through streets the way I had. I was peeking around a corner as he leaned against a wall to catch his breath when he suddenly said, "You shouldn't have come here by yourself."

I knew he said it in regards to the situation we were in, how I wouldn't have survived by myself. I didn't bother to tell him it would not have turned out like this if I'd been alone tonight; we didn't have the time for it. Besides, it felt like a loaded statement, like a reprimand for leaving him more than a warning for my safety. It sounded more like, "You shouldn't have come here _without me_."

I knew what he wanted to hear. I really did. But I'd never been one for apologizing. Even if the remorse was literally eating me alive from the inside out.

"I was doing fine," I replied, though that was probably the biggest lie I'd said all year. And that was saying something. I heard him scoff and turned just in time to see a man peek around the corner behind us. I slammed Clint to the wall and pulled my blade in one motion, throwing it swiftly and watching it lodge in the man's chest. I didn't give Clint the chance to say anything before pulling him around the corner and starting to run again. We were just a few blocks away from where we'd left our little stolen car. I was still holding onto Clint when he pulled me up short.

"Sh, wait," he whispered, holding me close in the middle of the alley. We stood silent for a moment, but I heard nothing. "Do you have any weapons left?" he asked quietly. I shook my head. "Get behind me."

I did, his hand still gripping mine as we made our way up the last block, much slower than before. That heightened sense of awareness had returned. We were almost to the tiny car when a small rustle behind a dumpster made Clint twirl me around and press me behind him to the opposite wall, his gun already pointed.

"Don't shoot, don't shoot! It's me!" came a frantic voice in Hungarian. Clint was taller than me so I had to stand on tiptoes to see over his shoulder. Huddled in the trash bags next to the dumpster, his face dirty and scratched, was Gaspár. He started to get up, probably thinking Clint was one of his guards.

"It's me!" he repeated. Clint cocked his gun.

"So it is," Clint replied without emotion. The gunshot echoed in the lonely alley. Clint pulled me away. "Let's go."

* * *

We drove alertly at first, wary of pursuers, but the closer we got into the city, the more we realized we weren't being followed. I let myself sink into the car seat, exhausted, and only then did the silence in the car seem extremely forced. I didn't say anything. Neither did he. We dumped the car in some small street a few blocks from my hotel and began walking on foot. He fell back a few steps behind me but continued to follow, making me feel like chaperoned child.

"Where's your hotel, anyway?" I said, turning suddenly when we'd reached the entrance to my hotel and he still showed no signs of leaving. He gave me a grin, but it was without his usual friendliness.

"I don't have one," he said, shrugging. I scoffed.

"Well, you better go find one," I said, turning back around and stomping off. He grabbed my wrist and turned me brusquely.

"Don't you think you should be a little nicer to me? I'm the one who got ditched like a dog," he said. I wrenched myself from his grip, unable to think of anything to say. He stood there, just looking at me, and I just stared back, my arms crossed and my chest aching.

After a long silence, he finally said, "You could've just said something, you know! You didn't want to work together anymore, _fine!_ I would have let you go! If you—if you didn't feel the same way, then—"

"Oh, my God!" I said, turning again and cutting him off. I couldn't believe he would bring this up now, here. I made my way to the hotel again, and heard him follow. I became vaguely aware of a few passerby turning to stare and imagined how odd we must look; a man in a tux, with a crooked bow tie and blood on his white collar, and a blonde woman in a lovely dress, barefoot and with ripped tights.

He said nothing else, following me through the lobby, into the elevator, and down the hall toward my room in silence. Just before I reached the door, I turned again. "Stop following me!" I yelled at him, a headache already starting to pound through my temples.

"Then stop running from me!" he yelled back. "Stop acting like you don't need anyone! You're not okay like you say you are, and I can tell. You're not being brave, doing this! You're just running! You're running with nowhere to go and—"

My hand struck his face with a resounding clap, cutting his words short as his head whipped to one side. There was a moment where everything seemed to stand still before I saw him blink and I felt the sudden stinging in my hand. He turned slowly, my fingers printed clearly on his face in red. He looked at me almost disbelievingly, as if he wasn't sure that had just happened. I blinked quickly, willing him to just go, to say no more, because I didn't need him to tell me the truth. I already knew it.

"Just leave," I whispered hoarsely. He looked at me for only a moment.

"No."

He moved toward me, pushing me to the wall next to the room's door. Maybe it was that I didn't have the energy to fight him, or maybe it was just that I was so deprived, so hungry for closeness, _his_ closeness, that I let him. He pinned me to the wall, his mouth on mine, and mine pushing insistently against his. My hands snaked around his neck and his slid from my shoulders to my waist.

I'm not entirely sure how I managed to open the room door without letting his lips leave mine, but we made it inside before he picked me up again, hiking up my dress and winding my legs around him. I worked furiously at his bow tie and buttons, but he unzipped the back of my dress easily, at his own leisurely pace, letting his fingers trace down my spine and making me shiver. I felt him grin against my lips, and I knew Clint, _my _Clint, was back, safe and solid and warm and real, right here in my arms.

* * *

There's something deliciously dangerous about falling to bed with an assassin. I'd found plenty of men to pleasure me in the last year that I'd been trying to replace the touch of Clint's hands. But there was nothing even close in comparison to the energy, the current of electricity running between us, the sheer power pulsing under our skin.

I ran my hands hungrily across his bare arms, savoring the ripple of muscle under my fingertips. His hands roved freely, exploring my body like a map he was determined to learn. I pulled him on top of me desperately, pining for his warmth, letting him cover me entirely like a blanket, and I realized just how much I'd missed him, how much I needed him, how no one else anywhere would have been able to replace the feel of his strong hands winding around me, stroking my smooth skin, slipping between my legs to the warmth within that was already aching for him.

I gasped sharply, my back arching, my fingers clawing desperately at his back. He kissed me forcefully, his strength exciting me. We were both dangerous people, and I liked that he knew he didn't have to be careful with me. I opened my lips to his, letting him breathe the life back into me. My hands drifted down his back, running smoothly over his muscle. He traced kisses down my neck, a low rumble vibrating in his throat, his hands running up my legs to settle on my breasts and tease my nipples to a point. He continued down to my navel and there he actually stopped to grin up at me before working his way lower, excruciatingly slowly. That bastard.

I writhed beneath him, my hands winding through his hair as his face fell between my legs. A loud moan escaped me when I felt his tongue flick in, twisting and turning, before being replaced with two fingers. I'm sure my grip on his hair was painful, but I didn't release him. He withdrew his hand slowly, finally placing his hips level with mine to enter me.

He pushed in slowly and I groaned loudly, my back arching dangerously high. He slipped his arms under me and held me to him, starting to work a slow rhythm. I wound my legs around him again, aching for his closeness, for him to fill the emptiness inside me.

He eagerly complied with my wishes, his pace slowly picking up until he was pounding inside me, all the way up his hilt. My breath was coming in ragged pants, and he was groaning loudly into my ear. I held onto him tightly, desperately, like he was my only lifeline as I mounted closer to my peak, my pulse pounding and my breath quickening. Each flick of his hips sent jabs of searing pleasure through my body, my spine feeling like it was being electrified.

"Tasha," I heard him whisper into my ear as though from very far away before one final desperate slam into me sent us both over and I was gone completely from this world. A wild cry escaped from me before my eyes glazed over, my toes curled, my hands clutched feebly at anything they could reach before I fell limp in his arms like a rag doll. I felt his weight fall on top of me and knew he was just as gone as I was. He was heavy on top of me, but I clutched at him to keep him there, comforted by his weight. My vision still seemed blurry but I shakily stroked his hair with an arm that felt like a noodle. He squeezed me suddenly, burying his face in my hair so that his breath tickled my neck. "I needed you," I heard him whisper, ever so faintly, and I wasn't sure if I was supposed to have heard or not.

I couldn't quite catch my breath from beneath him but I didn't care and held him in place, liking the feeling of being anchored to him. I continued to stroke his hair with shaky fingers, feeling like I'd never stop owing this man who kept appearing, again and again, to save me.


	8. Chapter 8

_**Same disclaimers as chapter 1.**_

_**AN:** Hey everyone! Long time, no see!_

_First of all, I want to apologize for the unforgivable amount of time it took me to finish this chapter and publish it. I am ashamed. It's been a busy few months and I'm really sorry. Thank you all for your patience and perseverance, readers!_

_Secondly, a special thank you to those of you who personally contacted me because you missed my story that much and wanted me to get to work on it again. You know who you are. It really did get me into gear and it made me feel like this is actually worth my time. Thank you so so much for taking the time to let me know my little story actually matters to you guys that much._

_Lastly, I want to wish you all happy holidays. As recompense for my lag, I wrote you guys a longer chapter as a Christmas present. Hope you all are enjoying this time of year as much as I am. Hoping everyone has a happy holiday, enjoy!  
_

* * *

Like always, I only knew it had been a dream when I woke up and found the evidence. My eyes opened suddenly like I'd been jolted awake, and as if by instinct, I spread my arms wide, my fingers stretching out on either side of me. And I found my evidence. This time, in the form of an empty bed on either side of me. Cold and lonely. I clutched at the sheets, my eyes slamming closed. Because that had been, by _far_, the worst dream I'd had yet. In all its loveliness, it had been the most terrible. So I kept my eyes shut tight against a reality I didn't want to see. I lay there, completely still, again trying to regain my grip on reality. After a long time, I allowed my eyes to slowly open, taking in the blinding brightness of the white room in the rising light. But I still didn't move. I simply lay there, staring at the white ceiling, my fingers tracing slow circles in the cold sheets. I sighed.

Finally, I moved to get up. I tried to bring my arms behind me to push me up only to find my shoulders suddenly held down. I wriggled for a moment but remained pinned as if a metal bar had been set across my shoulders. In an instant, the room darkened, like it had been dipped in black paint, and I felt a sudden weight begin at my feet. It continued to work up my legs until I felt I could no longer move them. And I could look nowhere but up because of the bar across my shoulders. I squirmed and kicked but the weight on top of me held me still.

"Calm down," he said, finally coming into my line of sight, looming directly above me. I stared at him uncomprehendingly.

"Clint?"

He raised an eyebrow. "It's me. You know. The guy who fucked you stupid last night? Ring any bells?" The voice was his, but somehow wrong. He laid his weight on me but it was no longer the comforting warmth I remembered. He was too heavy. He was suffocating me. I tried to wriggle from under him but still found myself unable to move from the weight.

"Clint, get off me now!" I said against gritted teeth, but I found my mouth suddenly blocked by his firm hand. He brought his other hand into view and I saw him wielding a small knife, the blade thin and glinting even in the darkness. My eyes widened disbelievingly. I exerted every possible ounce of energy to push him off me but still he lay on me like a rock.

"Tell me, Tasha. Do you regret it? Leaving me?" He brought the knife slowly to my neck, just below my chin, tracing the cold tip delicately across the sensitive skin there. I squirmed feebly. "Do you? Do you regret it!? _DO YOU REGRET IT NOW?_" His voice hiked up into a yell, the knife beginning to press harder against my neck. I felt a sting and knew he'd broken the skin. I looked at him, terrified, but his eyes didn't meet mine. He simply looked at my neck, his eyes lost and unrecognizable. With one quick movement, he pulled the knife across my neck just below my chin before jumping off of me and disappearing from my sight. I also tried to spring up but was still held down by the unyielding bar. I couldn't see where he'd gone. The room was still dark, pitch-black.

A sudden coldness began at my toes, creeping higher and higher, and with an unexplainable instinct, I suddenly knew it was water lapping up at my body. I felt it reach my thighs, my fingertips. I found I could move my legs and did so just as the water started creeping up my face. I kicked and thrashed, desperately trying to worm out from under the bar even as the black water moved higher and higher and my throat filled with blood. My breath was breaking off in gurgles, and still I couldn't get the damn bar off of me. I gasped for air, choked on my blood, kicked and squirmed and begged for reprieve just as the water covered my nose. I held my breath even as my body began to numb in the freezing water. My throat felt raw as if I'd been screaming, and my lungs begged for air but the bar wouldn't budge. My attempts weakened with each passing second, but still I held my breath and struggled. I felt my eyes roll back and found myself wondering why I didn't lose consciousness in such excruciating pain. I wouldn't be able to hold my breath much longer. My chest contracted, aching for that precious oxygen, and I knew this was the moment, this was it. I closed my eyes.

I gasped in reflexively at the precise moment the bar lifted, letting my head snap up and break the surface for air. Except I hadn't broken any surface. I opened my eyes to find myself sitting up in bed, clutching at my clean throat and gasping for air.

A nightmare. Like all the rest.

A hand touched my bare back and I nearly toppled off the bed.

"Tasha?"

I whipped around, eyes darting crazily, to meet Clint's concerned eyes as he reached for me. My breath quickened and I was choking and gasping and trying to scream all at the same time. I squirmed away from him, expecting him to pounce on me and rip open my throat again. He moved toward me and I released a high-pitched hysterical noise.

"Hey, hey, what's wrong? What is it?" He suddenly pulled me toward him, ignoring my thrashing. I squirmed away from him like a cat faced with water, but he held me firmly. He scanned my body as if looking for a wound. "What's wrong? Tell me where it hurts."

It only took a glance at him to know I was awake, finally _really_ awake. The worry and alarm in his eyes was genuine and familiar. I heard my own indistinct sobs become even more hysterical. Because Clint actually being here somehow made everything worse. Clint was real and alive and I hadn't dreamt what had happened the night before. But he was also in my nightmares and I couldn't stop them from making me doubt the reality of every second of my life. It was horrifying not being able to tell if I was awake or not.

I clutched the sheet to me, Clint clutched me to his chest, and we sat like that for a long time as my breathing returned to normal. Clint started rocking me gently now that I had stopped kicking. My body shook with silent, tearless sobs, but he held me firmly to him, collecting me into a ball in his lap, smoothing my hair and letting his warmth cover me like a blanket. I nuzzled into him almost involuntarily, clutching at him desperately. I felt my nails rake across his smooth skin in my desperation to anchor my arms around his neck. But he said nothing, instead continuing his steady rocking motion and making soft shushing noises. I closed my eyes and let my head rest on his hard chest, the steady drumming of his heart within calming me. Slowly, I could feel his warmth start to thaw my body, letting it relax. My eyes fluttered weakly. Every nightmare left me feeling like I'd just been in battle.

"What was that?" he asked suddenly, leaning his head down as if to catch something I'd said. I looked at him in confusion for a moment before realizing I had involuntarily started whispering my usual chant without even noticing. "You are alive, you are okay, you were just dreaming."

I nuzzled my face into his chest again, suddenly embarrassed. "It's just something I got into the habit of doing when I wake up…" I murmured dejectedly. I saw his jaw clench and felt him suddenly hold me tighter, resting his head on mine. He said nothing else, continuing his soothing rocking motion. I closed my eyes and tried my hardest to somehow press myself closer to him.

I found myself whispering it again after a while, but he didn't say anything about it this time. Instead, I heard him join in, whispering "You are alive, you are okay, you were just dreaming" softly into my ear. For some reason, this brought tears to my eyes.

We stayed that way for a long time. I was never exactly sure just how long. All I knew was it was still dark when I woke up, and by the time we disentangled ourselves from each other, warm morning light was streaming in.

That was the first time I woke him up and he saved me from my hell.

* * *

I came out of the bathroom some time later in the late morning, pulling a thick comb through my wet blonde locks. Clint was fully dressed and sitting on the couch, leaning toward the television set he was watching with interest. He was watching the news. In Hungarian. I stepped closer and saw he'd put English subtitles on.

"Whatcha watchin'?"

His head flicked toward me to show he'd heard me in a manner strikingly similar to the way cats flick their ears toward noises.

"News. They're reporting all the deaths from last night. Oh, and look, they even got a nice picture of us," he said contentedly as a blurry picture of two dark figures running across a busy street hand in hand flashed on the screen. The picture was completely indiscernible except for the yellow-white blur that was my blonde hair. "You look nice."

I slapped the back of his head, almost by instinct rather than actual volition, and he laughed as I turned back into the bathroom. Just like that. For a year, I'd been a complete social shut-in except when forced to interact with people and Maria's phone calls. And in just a night, I was interacting with Clint as if he'd been here the whole time.

I heard the television click off and saw him come toward me through the mirror. He leaned in the doorway for a moment, just watching me, and I continued brushing out my hair, pretending I didn't notice.

"I do like it, you know?" he said as he stepped up behind me, looking at me in the mirror and indicating my hair. He brushed his hand through it and I felt my eyes flutter. "It's just different. But everything becomes you." He rested his head on my bare shoulder, studying me.

"Well, it's too late to back out now anyway," I muttered simply. He smiled before bowing his head to kiss my shoulder. I reached up for him, resting my hand in his soft hair and looking at the pair of us in the mirror.

At the same time, we turned towards each other, our bodies hungrily pulling for the other, but our lips meeting with a gentle sweetness. I pushed up towards him on my tiptoes, yearning to close any gap between us. How could I have ever lived without this? How could I have allowed it? How could I have ever thought I would survive without him?

The single towel wrapped around me fell away easily, but Clint, who was already completely dressed, took, in my opinion, an excruciatingly long time. We stumbled out of the bathroom, and in my eagerness to rid Clint of his shirt, not only did I rip the shirt, but I also slammed Clint into a dresser. He didn't seem to mind. He wriggled out of the remains of his shirt before spinning me around and sitting me atop the offending dresser, clearing the surface from its assortment of hotel lotions, soaps, and stationary with one easy swoop of his arm.

My legs wound around his back as I brought his face to mine, refusing to let our lips part for even the most remote of moments. He kissed me deeply, his hands running hungrily up my legs, torso, and shoulders. I hugged him to me, letting our bare chests press together. It seemed to me he was always several degrees warmer than me. And the warmth felt delicious on my skin, like offering cold hands to a fire. He ran slow kisses down my neck and collarbone, and my head fell back welcomingly, begging for more. His kisses felt like searing tattoos, sending shocks of electricity straight through me and making my spine feel ablaze. His lips found mine again, and I welcomed them eagerly. I bit his lower lip gently before locking our lips together again and allowing our tongues to play. My hands ran slowly down his back, taking a moment to appreciate each scratch and scar I found as souvenirs of past battles. I let my fingertips trace over them, feeling each one made him all the more beautiful to me.

My fingers dipped into the dimples in his lower back before reaching the edge of his jeans. I brought my hands around him and worked on his belt, pulling the entire thing out and throwing it across the room once I'd unfastened it. He smiled against my lips when he felt it go, but started suddenly when I slid my hand under the hem of his boxers, letting it run down his entire length. I closed my fingers around his penis, immediately feeling it thicken with blood in my hand. I rubbed it slowly at first, my pace quickening in time with his catching breath in my ear, until even I couldn't take it anymore. I withdrew my hand and pulled him toward me with my legs, opening them wide to let my own throbbing sensitivity feel the hard bulge under his underwear just visible above his open zipper. I grinded slowly against him, my head falling back and my hands clutching at his neck for an anchor. He leaned down to press kisses to my collarbone, his warm hands fondling my breasts hungrily. I bucked against him harder until, seeming to be unable to take anymore, he wrapped his arms tight around me and swung me off the dresser.

He carried me toward the bed, dropping me on top of it as he finally rid himself of his last remnants of clothing. I expected him to enter me immediately, but he didn't, instead letting his exposed thickness rub up and down against my clit. I groaned yearningly, using my elbows to prop myself up and kiss him. He responded passionately, sitting up and pulling me with him, kissing me hungrily and continuing the rubbing motion, his pace slowly picking up. Our hands grabbed at any part of the other they could get a hold of, one of his sliding down and under my smooth belly to find me already agonizingly wet. I pushed him back and we fell against the bed when I could take it no longer. In a fashion not unlike pinning down an opponent, I held him down as I positioned myself on top of him. He held my hips but let me go at my own pace. I moaned luxuriously as I slowly slid onto him, feeling like he was filling every empty space I'd ever felt. He closed his eyes, the veins in his neck pulsing quickly. I bent down slowly, as best as I could while he was inside me, to kiss the place where his pulse betrayed the life pumping inside of him. His pulse was strong and I felt it beating against my lips.

I slowly got up again, his hands holding my hips steady, and began a steady rocking motion against him, my hands placed firmly on his chest for support. I began as slow as he had, but with our breath mingling together, my hunger didn't allow me to hold it for long. We began to pick up slowly like the beat of a song, rising and rising as it nears the chorus. He gasped something, but I didn't quite catch it over my own thundering heart and heavy breath.

"What?" I asked, my voice feeling shaky. He seemed to take a moment to collect his thoughts before answering.

"Tell, t-tell me when you're close," he gasped, his breath catching at uneven times in the sentence. I nodded, unable to say more as I bucked against him. His hands, for all their strength, held me gently, caressing me delicately as if he was afraid I might shatter. Just as I felt the start to climb toward my peak, I looked down at him and saw his eyes were closed, his forehead crinkled as if in concentration, meanwhile the pulse in his neck throbbed faster than ever. I realized he was trying to wait for me.

"I—I'm ready," I gasped, clutching at him as energy seemed to well up inside me like a ball of consuming fire. His eyes snapped open and he caught his breath as if he'd been holding it this whole time. He sat up slowly, making me gasp loudly as he shifted inside me and pushed himself higher into me, before slowly setting me down under him. I closed my eyes, eagerly waiting for his weight to rock into me, only to feel myself suddenly emptied. My eyes opened and I realized he'd pulled out. I frowned, feeling like I was hopelessly drifting if I wasn't anchored to him. My confusion lasted only a second, however, as he quickly lifted my entire body and spun me onto my belly, lifting my hips to enter me again. I gasped, feeling him curl up into me. I clutched at the sheets as he bucked into me once, twice, three times, and finally slammed into that unreachable spot within me. A spasm curled through me, lighting up my entire body in one infinite moment, before leaving me slack like a doll. Faintly, as if from really far away, I heard Clint groan and felt the shiver course through his entire body, ending in me. I exhaled sharply, feeling entirely wasted and completely rejuvenated at the same time.

He pulled out slowly and leaned down to softly kiss my shoulder blades, his fingers brushing away strands of my hair to kiss my pale neck. He toppled down next to me and I turned myself toward him, allowing one of his arms to drape over me. I nuzzled my nose against him, taking in deep breaths of that indescribable scent unique to him. In those few moments, I knew complete bliss.

If it had been up to me, we would have stayed in that bed forever. Laying there, watching the warm sunlight dance in Clint's eyes, I was reminded of a poem I'd once read, years ago. It spoke of a smitten lover telling the sun he shouldn't work so hard lighting up the entire world. He told the sun he should just shine on the bed he and his lover shared instead, because that was the entire world in one place. If he shone upon them, that was enough.

That was us. The entire world wrapped in this bed of tangled sheets and mussed hair. If the sun shone here, it shone everywhere.

I stared at him a long time without saying anything, simply admiring him, wishing it could be as simple as staying in this bed forever. He rolled onto his side after some time, and I quickly closed the space between us, my head finding its place on his shoulder as if they'd molded together. Clint traced lazy circles on my back, his breath tickling my ear. Right here, tucked into the place where I fit beside him, I knew who I was. I wasn't a vacated shell. I wasn't a thousand different empty names. I wasn't a spy or a mercenary. I was just a person, simple and ordinary, finally completed.

* * *

I awoke in the late afternoon with a start, feeling disoriented. I felt constricted, but I felt the force give way when I pushed back against it. I looked up to see I was still wrapped in Clint's arms.

"Ah, you've rejoined the land of the living. Welcome back," he said, turning his eyes from the television to me. I looked at him warily, expecting the scene to suddenly darken or for him to suddenly put a knife to my throat. But he only stared back placidly, his eyes glinting in their usual manner. Real Clint.

I blinked. I'd slept. Without nightmares. Without anything. Just sleep. I felt, for once, well-rested.

"How long was I out?" I asked, looking around. The sun outside was low in the sky.

"All day basically," he shrugged. "Didn't want to wake you. Figured you had a rough night."

I looked down at him. "And you couldn't find a spare moment to get dressed?"

He laughed, stretching his still naked body, smelling of soap and sex. "What for? Besides, you'd get a death grip on me whenever I tried moving. I'm glad you're awake, actually. I was starving and I already ate all the mints I could reach on the bedside table."

I looked away, feeling heat color my cheeks at the thought of myself clinging to him, desperate and feeble like a child in sleep. I sat up quickly to hide my face. I cleared my throat. "Well, um, hm, you can go eat now."

He stretched again, slowly this time, several joints cracking as he sat up. I looked at the television, the reporter's jabber finally catching my attention.

"Hey, what's going on?" I asked, indicating the news. Clint huffed, a noise somewhere between annoyance and exasperation.

"More killings. Looks like we unleashed that mob war."

"But why?" I asked of no one in particular, my eyebrows crinkling. "Gaspár is dead."

"Which means every other gang lord in the city is fighting to get his spot," Clint said with a lazy air. "Looks like we're gonna be here for a while doing damage control."

My eyes flicked from the television to Clint as he slipped into his jeans and left to get food, thinking if he was here, this wasn't the worst place I could think of choosing to stay.

* * *

I got off the phone sometime later and, as Clint has predicted, Fury wanted us to stay and clean up the mess. Another three weeks of work, at the least.

It wasn't that hard to find our targets. The streets had become war zones, with gang lords and innocents dying in almost equal quantities. Clint and I were but measly specks in the masses, silently killing off both sides and going unnoticed in the tumult.

After about a month of going out every night, blades hidden in my shoes, guns strapped to every concealable body part, and with the help of competing gangs doing most of the work of killing for us, Clint and I were just about ready to head home. And I was more than ready. Loud noises had started to make me flinch like some shell-shocked war victim and the increasing number of dead civilians had started to weigh on me. Every time the number flashed across the screen during the news, I knew some of them were mine. Some of that number, I had stopped from going home to their families, maybe to a wife or husband, sons and daughters. I could feel the weight of their deaths making me heavy. Clint said that was just the weight of all the extra guns and ammo I had strapped to me, but his jokes didn't make me feel better.

Finally, we had just one target left. The last guy standing. His death meant I could go home. I could leave these streets that were glazed in blood and littered with bodies. And I'd be damned if I didn't kill him myself if it meant leaving this place.

* * *

"Hey Tasha, check it out. Tasha! Tasha, look!"

I turned from where I was sitting on the edge of the bed tying my sneakers. Today, Clint and I were playing the part of normal civilians. It was a relief to not have to run in heels anymore. Clint stood on the other side of the bed where he had every weapon imaginable spread out and was trying desperately to attach as many of them to his body as he could.

"Tasha, I got balls of steel. Geddit?" he said with the crooked boyish smile he put on whenever he was amused. I looked down to see he'd attached two state-of-the-art steel grenades to his belt loops so they hung over his crotch. The grenades glinted innocently in the light. But I knew the purpose of the grenade's steel encasement was to explode and become shrapnel, harming or killing those even out of the range of the explosion, and the idea made me wince. But for Clint's sake, I just rolled my eyes. I knew he was trying to make me feel better.

"Wise place to put them," I said as he delicately took them off. "Are you ready?" I asked, standing and straightening my clothes over my Kevlar vest. It fit me a little big and it made me look bulky. I'd tried to get Clint to take it, as it was our only one, but he was adamant about my having it. I looked at Clint, who still didn't have a shirt on, and was, _obviously_, not ready.

"In a minute, in a minute!" he said, throwing up his hands and starting to strap guns to his back when met with my impatient look. I made my way to the bathroom to wash my face and hands, which had recently taken to getting hot before we went out to fight. I tried to shake off the feeling. I needed to be on my feet. If everything went right, tonight would be the end of it.

I exited the bathroom to find Clint still struggling to stick something up his sleeve, literally. I rolled my eyes.

"No, Clint, you are not taking the nun chucks," I said, pulling him toward the door by the back of his hoodie. He groaned, letting the nun chucks fall back to the bed from his balled up sleeve.

* * *

It was late evening and the deep orange in the sky was dissipating quickly. Clint and I walked briskly towards the outskirts of the city, where The Last Man Standing himself, Adrienn Apa, was signing a deal with an important drug lord in North America and sealing his place, for the moment, at least, as the cocaine king of this side of the Atlantic. As far as I was concerned, tonight we'd kill two birds with one stone and be on our way.

"Relax. How many times do I have to tell you?" I heard Clint's voice drift toward me from behind. He was a few paces back, walking idly and staring at the darkening sky as the first pinprick of stars started appearing. I stopped, waiting for him and trying to adopt his easy gait as I fell into step beside him, trying to exude his effortless carelessness, as if we really were nothing more than clueless tourists, bent on nothing other than getting back to our little inn. Even so, I couldn't help standing just a little straighter, walking just a little stiffer. Clint made an exasperated noise, stepping towards me to sling his arm over me. I slumped under the weight, tempted to push him off. He made me feel restricted, unable to reach my weapons at a moment's notice, and it made me feel even jumpier.

"You don't need it now. Just go with it," he said, catching my hand that was inching toward the blade hidden in my belt and making it seem as if he just took it to kiss it. I sighed, trying to find the usual comfort I felt with him.

Slowly, the quiet streets become progressively more populated. This was no accident. These were no ordinary tourists. They walked too slowly, talked too quietly, eyed strangers too suspiciously. Body guards. Swarming Adrienn Apa's meeting place like bees surrounding a hive.

Clint pulled me down a side street and into a small inn with a wooden front. We were greeted inside by a kind old woman, her white hair pulled into a bun atop her head. I quickly checked Clint and I into the reservations Clint had made only hours ago as the travel agent of the American tourist couple we were pretending to be. We slipped into our room facing the street quietly. Clint immediately threw the duffel he'd had slung over his shoulder on the bed, unzipping it and taking out the various parts to his sniper gun. I moved toward the window and peeked through the curtains to a small building a few blocks away. There wasn't much activity that I could see. Not yet.

Clint brushed my back softly with the tips of his fingers, trying to get by to position his gun. I let him, trying to shake off the shivers he'd left behind. His random acts of gentleness still caught me off guard. Not only because I knew he was capable of cold, brutal strength, but because my guilt still weighed like a stone within me whenever his skin or his hands or his eyes found mine. In the time since he'd found me, I still hadn't spoken a word as to why I'd left. Had he figured it out? Did he know I was a coward? It seemed impossible to me that he had. Because if he had, how could he stand to look at me still?

His gentleness surprised me because I knew I deserved his scorn.

He positioned his gun on the sill and stretched, turning back to me and asking me to hand him a pillow. I jumped out of my reverie, and clenched my jaw, wishing he hadn't seen me flinch. I sat on the bed, feigning easiness, and threw him a pillow. He took it and tucked it under his knees, studying me. I raised an eyebrow, trying to reclaim the manner I took when I lied. But I felt it wither under his gaze and looked down instead. He looked back out the window, leaving me with the impression he'd just read my mind like an open book.

"So, when are you gonna wanna talk about this?" he whispered, one eye shut and the other squinting through his gun's scope. I swallowed. Open book, indeed.

"Talk about wh—?" I began.

"Spare me the bullshit; you owe me as much, Tasha," he said immediately. There was no bite to his words, but I felt as if he'd slapped me. I immediately felt foolish for even thinking of trying to play stupid with him. My eyes drifted uneasily. I idly registered his bow glinting under the pillow at his feet, never very far from reach.

I swallowed, deciding the truth was best. It was what he deserved. But when I thought I knew where to start, the words suddenly caught in my throat and I'd swallow them back and start again, leaving us in silence for nearly half an hour. He didn't turn to look at me once, but I knew he waiting. Showing me patience, like always. Finally, I asked, "What do you want to know?"

Even turned away from me, I saw his eyebrows rise in my mind. He finally turned away from his scope, his eyebrows raised in precisely the manner I'd imagined. "How is that even a question? I—I want—I—everything. I want to know everything."

His voice faded. He looked down and then in a desperately dejected voice, whispered, "I was lost without you."

It was a broken whisper, a confession, a plea for explanation.

I sat up, aching to reach for him, but stopping short, my hand half-raised between us. My mouth was open, willing the truth to spill out of me, to lay myself out on a silver platter before him, to beg for his forgiveness, but nothing came out. Tears pricked the back of my eyes, but I refused to let a single one roll down. I blinked quickly, pulling my hand back and turning slightly away from him before he could look up. We stood in silence for another moment before he cleared his throat and turned back toward the window.

And I knew the case was closed. He wouldn't ask again. And knowing me, it would die there.

We sat in silence for hours as the small room became pitch black. I found myself yearning to reach out to him, pull him to the warm bed and forget our ridiculous responsibilities for a few hours, a habit I'd formed in this past month in which every free moment had found my skin pressed to his. But I immediately felt stupid and juvenile for even thinking it, and remained in my seat on the bed in the dark room behind him, hands tucked tightly around me, watching the lights outside bathe his skin.

"Showtime," he whispered, calling me to attention. I inched closer and could have sworn I felt him tense beside me as I pulled up next to the window. But another half of me thought that was just my imagination. I peered through the gauzy curtains, trying to focus my binoculars on our targeted building. Finally, the blurry shadows materialized into people, one of which I recognized as the American drug lord, sitting at a desk and tapping his fingers impatiently. As I watched, I saw his head snap up, quickly followed by his entire body jumping out of his chair and standing at attention. I'd wager Adrienn Apa had finally made his appearance. The clicking of Clint's gun being cocked seemed to suggest I was right. A few guards walked across the window, blocking Apa as he made his way around the desk. When the guards moved to flank him, I finally saw his face and gasped.

The Last Man Standing, Adrienn Apa, was a woman. Thin, dark-haired, and particularly tiny-looking. She couldn't be any bigger than me. Yet the confident set of her chin and demeanor suggested a persona as big as any other gang lord. She finally sat, sinking into the desk chair and looking even smaller. She seemed to have engaged in polite conversation, her smile spreading wide and sickeningly sweet. Too pretty to not be venomous.

"Clint," I whispered insistently. "Take your shot."

He shushed me. I looked at him, then back again. Clint and I didn't disagree on very many things on the field. I turned back to my binoculars, trying to see what Clint was seeing. Guards everywhere, a given. Pleasantries before business; pointless, in my opinion, but nothing out of the usual. I looked around. Apa was leaning back luxuriously in her chair, hands folded in her lap, seeming entirely relaxed, while her visitor stood rigid in his. The desk was empty. Not a paper, not a pen, not anything in sight. I saw Apa's hands fidget under the desk and finally understood, a moment before it happened. There was never going to be any deal tonight. In a split second, Apa stood, her right arm stretching with a gun at its end. I blinked and next thing I knew, the American was slumped over grossly in his chair, blood streaming from his forehead.

"There we go," Clint whispered, steadying himself. I looked at him and couldn't help grinning. He'd let her do half the work for him. I had the vague urge to grab him and kiss him for his brilliance, but again resisted. Without flinching, I watched him pull the trigger and knew 500 feet away, a body was falling to the floor, as devoid of life as the one it had just claimed.

"Let's go, Tasha," he urged, jumping to his feet and snapping me back into real time. I looked out the window. Without binoculars, the window we'd been surveying was but a speck. Down below, the crowds had started running. But some were running straight for us and I knew the guard dogs would be on top of us any moment. I picked up what I could and let Clint take my hand and whisk me out through the fire escape.

Outside, yells pierced the air, each one making me flinch. Clint shook me, giving me a worried look. I tried to shut down and focus on running but the screams seemed to echo in my head, resounding over and over.

"Tasha! Tasha, your guns!" Clint yelled. He spun me against a wall when we landed on the street, shielding me with his body and shooting a man in khakis running for us. I gasped, looking at Clint disbelievingly.

"Clint! Clint, you killed him!" I yelled, horrified.

"Yes, Tasha, it's what we do!" he said, taking the tone of a teacher trying to explain something simple to someone very young. I looked at the dead man and finally, something deep inside my echoing head clicked, and I registered the gun in his hand. Right. He wasn't a civilian, he was only dressed like one. He was trying to kill us. So Clint had to kill him first. Of course.

Clint dug under my sweater, pulling out one of my guns for me and pressing it to my hand. The weight seemed to snap some part of me back to reality. The sudden return to alertness seemed to comfort Clint, who had been eyeing me worriedly.

"Ready?"

I nodded resolutely. With one last unsure glance, he ran down an alley closely follow behind by me.

The streets were chaos. Like someone had rattled the bee hive and all the bees had started to attack, flying in every which direction and attacking any and every target. Clint shot three men on one side of an alley and I took two on the other side, five falling dead one right after another. The running had started to make my muscles ache, but the pain felt good, like finally waking up. It kept me focused, grounded, together.

We ran and shot in unison, falling back into our pattern, comforting me with its familiarity. Men seemed to come from all sides, and I always fumbled for a moment when first deciding whether they were actual civilians or threats. I didn't know for sure until I saw the guns pulled on me. Then it was a matter of who was fastest. And I had always been the fastest in my class.

Clint pulled me down a narrow alley, the silver of our tiny getaway car glinting two streets away. My lungs burned but new energy thrust me forward like a runner when faced with the end of a marathon. The end was close. Our path was clear. We were less than one street's width away when it exploded.

Heat brushed my face like a caress before I was thrown back, falling awkwardly against the alley wall and scraping both my elbows and hitting my head hard. My ears were ringing and I couldn't see. Everything was too bright. I tried blinking away the spots, but everything still looked like it was glowing too bright. My throbbing head could only form one coherent thought. Clint.

I fumbled around, trying to regain my feet while my sight was impaired and feeling ridiculously vulnerable.

"Clint?" My voice came as a harsh croak. I cleared it roughly and tried again. "Clint?"

Tiny spots were still dancing around my vision, but I could start to make out shapes when I heard his groan and turned to see his vague figure slumped over on the ground. I ran to him, lifting his head gently. He blinked at me in much the same manner I imagined I was doing: frantically quick, trying desperately to regain vision. Being blind was as good as being dead.

"Clint! Clint, it's me!" I brushed back his hair, scanning his body for injuries. Like me, except for a few scrapes and a gash just under his hairline, he seemed fine. He seemed to regain himself faster than me, because in just a moment he was on his feet again, however shakily, and pulling me deeper into the alley away from the street. He looked around frantically, as if willing an escape route to just fall out of the sky. I looked at him, trying to get my brain to work. We seemed to reach the same conclusion at the same time, and our eyes met.

"Looks like we're fighting our way out," he said.

"How refreshing," I tried saying nonchalantly, but my voice shook as much as my wobbly feet. He looked at me warily.

"You're still good, right?" He scanned me then for injuries like I'd done with him. When he seemed convinced I wasn't bleeding to death, he nodded, starting to run in the direction which we'd come.

"You still know how to get to the safe house from here, right?" he yelled back to me. I thought a moment, letting the map of the city I'd learned rearrange itself according to my location. The safe house we'd arranged was not actually very far from here. I just needed to get across the river that crossed Budapest. Once I found the bridge, I'd be fine.

"Yeah," I answered as we pulled up to the mouth of the alley. We both pressed our backs to opposite walls instinctively. The explosion had caused more screaming in that direction, but this little street now seemed quiet.

"Alright, let's go," Clint said, nodding and starting to run again. I caught my last full breath before leaping after him, the night air rushing by and making my eyes tear. We dodged down side streets, melting into the shadows and trying to stay out of the light of street lamps as often as possible. We were blocks away from the bridge. My heart pumped, feeling close to the end again. We ran down an alley and crossed a group of men, these not even bothering to try to camouflage themselves amongst the civilians. They must have called for reinforcements. We stopped short at a little intersection where another alley met this one. At the end of it, I could see the bridge in the distance. Clint started shooting, only taking a moment to push me in the direction of the bridge.

"Go!" he yelled, pushing me again. I shook my head weakly but he pushed me again, harder this time, and I started to run, the sound of his gunshots ringing behind me. I was just a few streets away when another pair of men seemed to jump out of the walls and bear down upon me. I shot the first and kicked away the other's gun. He smashed me to the alley wall, and I could feel my face start to sting with new scratches. I threw my head back, crunching against his nose and turned long enough to shoot him before running again. Another man seemed to have heard the gunshots and ran into my path less than a block later. I shot at him but my gun clicked empty. He grinned. I swung at him, hitting him in the jaw with the butt of the gun, my left hand already pulling another from my back. He was dead before he hit the ground.

I was at the last intersection from the bridge when a mob suddenly burst out running behind me. I turned, shooting wildly. At the same time, a shadow moved atop the building behind them. I could have sworn I heard the slight twanging noise of his released arrow and a moment later the men flew aside, thrown by the arrow's explosive tip. The figure motioned for me to keep running. I did.

The crowds were thicker around the bridge. Easy to get lost in. I kept running, weaving and dodging through people. I heard a bullet whiz by me and hit a tree. People everywhere suddenly turned, screaming and running in every direction. I turned only long enough to see another man, this one dressed in jeans and a Hawaiian shirt, with a gun outstretched. I kept running. I was almost at the bridge. The huge steel framework loomed in the darkness ahead.

In one indescribable moment of premonition, I hit the ground and shot at him on my back just as he shot again. I saw his knees buckle at the precise moment a shrill scream pierced the air behind me. I turned, and there on the sidewalk leading into the bridge, bathed in the yellow light form the street lamp above her, was a little girl, blood seeping her white dress at her ribs. For a moment, I saw a little girl with ivory skin and red curls looking back at me with wide eyes, a gun gripped at her side as the blood stained her dress. I blinked and she was gone, replaced again by the little blonde one in front of me, surely no more than seven or eight years old. She blinked at me once before toppling over. I stood, frozen, a scream welling up in my chest. I heard fast footfalls behind me, but didn't bother running. Let them come. I'd welcome death with open arms. A bullet in the head right now would be a mercy.

"Nat, go!"

It was Clint. Of course. I squeezed my eyes. I would receive no reprieve. I would suffer. He pushed me forward, slinging his bow over his arm. When I didn't move, he pulled me by the arm and starting running again. I let myself be dragged, the little girl's wide eyes still staring at me blankly from behind my eyelids. Our feet finally reached the walk on the bridge, cars whizzing beside us on the street. I could see a load of cop cars making their way in the direction we'd just come from on the other side of the bridge. Too late. Nothing they could do now except collect the bodies. Deliver the cold corpse of that little girl to her family in a wooden box.

My legs and lungs were burning, and the bridge was a wide one, but I didn't ask to stop. We were just off the bridge on the other side when bullets starting raining down on us again from a sleek black car behind us. Clint pulled me sideways, running for the nearest side street. I turned and saw the car left abandoned in the traffic at a stop light with the doors left open, four men in suits spilled out and running after us. I shot blindly, my vision seeming to tint red. Those bastards! Those bastards! She was just a little girl!

I shot one. Then another. Clint pulled me into a side street, the two remaining men following behind us, not even faltering in step as their counterparts fell. I shot a third when he came around the corner then my gun again clicked empty. I threw it back uselessly. I pulled another from my side, shooting the fourth squarely in the forehead with triumph. The shot that killed him rang at the same time as another behind me. I slammed into Clint's back as he screamed. I turned and shot at the first figure I saw, his body falling quickly. Clint fell crookedly against me, blooding staining his shirt. I froze. Not him. Not him, too. Not Clint.

"Tasha," he called feebly. I groaned, pushing the heels of my hands into my eyes. This was a nightmare. I just needed to wake up before I saw him die. "Tasha," he called again, weaker this time. I paced frantically around him, willing myself to wake up. But I couldn't. He was dying and I couldn't wake up. This was it. The end of all ends for this endless nightmare I called a life. The Kevlar vest I wore suddenly weighed me down like bricks. That idiot. I had told him to take it! I told him! My fault. My fault. My fault. My fault.

"Natalia, I need you." His voice was no more than a whisper, but carried a firmness that snapped me back. I looked up, from the stain on his shirt to his face. His eyes were resolute and sure. He lifted an arm weakly towards me, and I immediately took it. This wasn't a dream. It wasn't a dream and if I didn't get him to safety, his killing would be by my own hand.

I picked him up, brought to focus by the task at hand and blocking everything out. We were just a block from our safe house. I could get him there. I would. I would save him like all the times he saved me.

He seemed a thousand times heavier than usual, his weight bearing on me like an anchor trying to pull me to the bottom of the ocean to drown. I readjusted myself under him, my other hand poised with a gun. I half shuffled, half dragged him down the street and turned into an alley. At some point, he passed out and I saw his head lull forward lifelessly. I stopped, panicked, to check for breathing. When I was reassured by the pulse in his neck, I kept going, but faster this time. The pulse was there, but it was a ridiculous imitation of what it usually was, the strong and steady pulsing I felt beneath my lips when I kissed the spot where I could feel the life beating beneath his skin.

I stopped and propped him against the alley wall while I punched in a little window just above ground level. It swung in easily and I wedged him in through it, pushing him in slowly and letting him land softly down beneath before jumping in myself and closing the window securely behind us. We were in an old wine cellar of a small winery that had closed for a few weeks while the owners went on holiday. I covered the window with towels from the supplies we'd snuck in earlier in the week before lighting a small oil lamp. All of me ached with exertion and my arms screamed with pain when I moved to pick up Clint again. I ignored it and I shuffled him toward the small single mattress we'd put in a corner. His breathing was shallow when I laid him down. I brought over the oil lamp and our first aid kit. I tore open his shirt, bracing myself for the wound. The bullet had made a disgusting hole on the right side of his body, just beneath his ribs. But it was far to the side and I guessed it hadn't pierced any organs. I opened the first aid kit gingerly, trying to calm myself. Inside was everything from antiseptic to rolls of gauze the size of my head. After all, agents weren't usually treating just scrapes and bruises.

I placed another towel below him before opening a bottle of alcohol and, without giving myself time to pause, poured it into his wound. His eyes snapped open for one brief moment, a strangled cry escaping him before his head fell back on the pillow limply.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's okay," I shushed him quietly, leaving him only long enough to wet a towel and place it on his forehead. "This is gonna hurt, I'm sorry," I whispered to him, brushing back his hair as his eyes swam aimlessly, not really seeing. I steeled myself to retrieve the bullet with a pair of tweezers I'd cleaned with antiseptic. I dug into his flesh, anxious to get it over with. He groaned, making my heart clench, but I didn't let myself stop until the bullet was out. After a minute of painstaking digging, I fished it out. I stitched him up quickly, ignoring his moans and patching him up with a thick pad of gauze.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's okay, it's over," I kept whispering to him mindlessly. I quickly cleaned the gash on his head and his scrapes before putting the kit away. I wiped his head with more cold water and he let out a low moan, rumbling deep in his chest, and closed his drifting eyes. I didn't even think to treat any of my wounds. I just threw off my sweater and rid myself of the bulletproof vest, kicking it as far away from me as possible when it came off. In my still-sweaty undershirt, I awkwardly shuffled onto the mattress between him and the wall on the other side without moving him and gingerly rested my head on his shoulder. I lay like that for a long time, my ear pressed to the pulse in his neck.

I fell asleep listening for it to return to its usual pace, strong and even, thrumming steadily beneath me like a war drum.


	9. Chapter 9

**_Same disclaimers as chapter 1._**

**_AN: _**_Hey guys! New chapter! Hope you guys didn't mind the wait too much! Please enjoy! xxx_

* * *

_Gorgeous_. The word reached me as if from very far away, weaving lazily through the space around me before slowly seeping into my ears like water and then fading to silence. I listened for it again. Gorgeous. It wove around me like a veil of satin, embracing me sweetly with its vague familiarity before again dissipating into silence like vapor. Gorgeous. I listened to it fondly now, appreciating the rise and drop of the word, the peaks of the vowels, the lingering of the last consonant.

"Gorgeous."

The noise was closer now, and sharper. And in the same moment, I became aware of color that hadn't been there before. Red. A dull flickering red. I realized what I was looking at. The back of my eyelids. They fluttered weakly as I opened them, my eyes shying away from the brightness of the oil lamp dangling in front of my face.

"Ah, she lives," Clint said to no one in particular, balancing the lamp on his stomach while he pushed back my hair with his free arm. His other one, I realized, was cradling my head. I snapped up, wary of hurting him, muttering a groggy apology.

"Sorry, sorry, I'm—_were you calling me gorgeous_?"

He grinned crookedly. "I tried 'pain in my ass' and 'life-ruiner' but you didn't respond to either."

I huffed, resisting the urge to smack him because he was already wounded. And even his smile couldn't mask the sweat on his brow or the red seeping his bandage. I stood, taking the lamp to retrieve the first aid kit from the dark. I brought it back to Clint's bedside, but he stopped my hands as I approached him.

"No, you first."

"Clint—"

"You left yourself entirely untreated. That's irresponsible."

"I'm not that bad—"

"Prop me up, Tasha," he said, holding my hands firmly. I pursed my lips before coming around to help him sit up. He drew the kit toward him as I sat beside him on the edge of the mattress. He cleaned the scrapes on the side of my face gently, his eyebrows slightly furrowed. I stared at him anxiously, eager to change his bandage. I noticed a cut on his lip I hadn't seen before.

"Your shirt, Tasha," Clint tugged gently on my tank's hem after spreading ointment on my face and wrapping several cuts on my forearms. I looked down in confusion to see red smudging on the right side of my white tank. I frowned. I didn't remember getting that. I pulled the tank off slowly, wary of my sore muscles as I pulled it over my head, leaving me in my black bra and revealing a nasty scrape on my side decorated with a dark border of purple bruising against my pale skin. Clint frowned, his fingers trailing over the bruises delicately. I had to clench my fists to stop from shivering.

After Clint was finally convinced all my wounds were properly treated, he let me attend to him. When I finished, I laid him back down while I planned to go find us some food, which we hadn't been able to stock our hideout with in time. But he was adamant I stay with him.

"God damn, I've just been shot. Can you just wait until I fall asleep before disappearing again?"

He meant it as a joke, but it stung. I was glad just then that it was dark and he couldn't see my face.

"The world doesn't cater to you, Clint Barton, and neither do I," I replied coolly, even as I laid down next to him, dressed in one of his old shirts, the first article of clothing I'd been able to find.

I heard him chuckle. "Don't I know it."

I squeezed back into the spot I'd occupied the night before, his arm welcoming me unquestioningly. His hand stroked back my hair, and I let my eyes close. Not so much because I was tired, rather than because I couldn't stand to look at him just then. I didn't deserve to look at him. _How did he do it?_ I wondered. How did he keep opening his eyes every day without despising the sight of me? How did he manage to hold me after I'd abandoned him with a kiss still hot on our lips?

Clint's hand continued its rhythmic stroking, but soon slowed before stopping altogether. I opened my eyes to see Clint's face gone slack, his chest rising and falling evenly. I stopped only long enough to snuggle against him for a moment, taking in a deep breath of him and wishing I'd been as brave as him the night I'd disappeared. I allowed myself only a moment before wiggling out from next to him and sneaking up into the small apartment above the wine shop. The wooden stairs creaked often, making me feel vulnerable even though I was alone.

I stumbled into several rooms before finding the small kitchen. The small window above the sparkling white stove showed a bright stream of late morning light. The refrigerator was almost empty, but I found the pantry still fairly stocked. And not surprisingly, there was no shortage of wine. I found two loaves of bread, still whole and unsliced, smelling deliciously of fresh bakery bread, not like the stuff you bought in supermarkets in America. The smell reminded me of my childhood, if I could be said to have one. Among the few things in the fridge was a small tub of cream cheese, which I took along with some dried peaches from the pantry and a few fresh apples I found in a fruit basket on the counter. I tucked a bottle of wine under my arm and headed back downstairs. I considered taking plates and utensils, but it seemed too invasive and personal. And that was saying something, considering I was already stealing food and roosting in the basement.

I waited quietly until sometime around mid-afternoon for Clint to wake up, continually wetting a small terry cloth and placing it on his forehead if he started to feel warm. I sat him up when he woke up and placed the food between us on the mattress. We tore pieces of the bread and spread it with cheese, taking turns to take sips straight from the wine bottle. I left the dried peaches to him and took an apple instead. I'd never been a fan of dried fruit.

"How old do you think this wine is, Nat?" Clint asked when we were halfway through with the bottle, swirling around the remaining contents. I scraped another piece of bread against the cheese.

"I don't know, why?"

"Does wine's age affect its level of alcohol?" he asked, eyeing the wine shrewdly. I looked at him.

"No?"At least, I didn't think so. I took a last bite of apple and let my back fall against the wall behind the mattress.

"Hm. How drunk do you suppose we'd be if we finished this bottle?"

I turned, an eyebrow raised. "You're not serious," I said, even as I felt a corner of my mouth lifting. Clint grinned without looking at me, continuing to swirl the wine.

"I propose we find out," Clint said, taking a gulp and offering the bottle to me, still staring straight ahead. "Unless you're afraid you can't handle your alcohol," he added when I hesitated.

I scowled. "Give me that."

* * *

"No, I'm just _saying_, if animals had religions, I think cats would be atheists. Don't they just look like atheists? They look like atheists," Clint mumbled, his voice catching at strange times in his sentences. He was standing, but hunched over awkwardly, with his cheek pressed to the wall. And he was upside down.

No. I was upside down. I was hanging from a low rafter by the knees. And I wasn't entirely sure how I'd gotten here or how long it had been, but the wine bottle was finally empty and I could swear I could hear a buzzing in my head, like bees has suddenly roosted in my brain. Maybe that was all the blood that had gone to my head.

Across the room, Clint was still muttering about cats when I straightened my knees to dismount. But time seemed to speed up much faster than usual, and before I could get my feet below me, the floor reached up to meet me. I grunted, landing on my back. Clint, who had finally turned around, snorted.

"I—I give that a eleven," he said, falling back on the floor to laugh.

"Fuck off. You sound stumb," I said, only vaguely registering I'd just made up a word in my struggle to decide whether to call him stupid or dumb.

Clint didn't notice. He sat up suddenly, his eyes alight. "You know what we should do? We should, we should just, we should totally just throw wine out the window at people. I mean, we have so much wine, you know? We should share, we should totally share," he laughed, sitting as if in awe at his own generosity. He took two bottles from a crate and ran shakily up the stairs, trailing me behind him.

He slammed into one of the bedrooms, and ran across it to the window that faced the back alley, setting the wine down and trying to wrestle the window open. I stared at him from the bed.

"Clint, maybe that isn't such a good idea?" I said, my head swimming. He finally threw the window open, then came and put both his hands on my shoulders.

"Are you kidding me? It's bullet proof, Tasha," he said. I squinted at him, confused, and thought idly that the phrase he had probably meant was 'fool-proof'. I thought about telling him, but it seemed too much energy to spend.

Clint stuck his head out. "Natasha!" he yelled out into the alley.

"What?"

"Natasha! There are no people!" he yelled before bringing his head back in and looking deflated.

"I'm sorry," I frowned, wanting to hug him. He turned around and I saw a lick of hair on the back of his head sticking up. He looked back out the window and made a sudden screeching noise.

"Natasha, look, a person, look!" he said, dragging me over to see a man taking out his trash. The rest of the alley was empty. Clint reached blindly for a wine bottle and threw it towards the man. His aim was awful, and it exploded on the wall a good five feet above the man. He turned, startled, before starting to curse rapidly. I tackled Clint to the floor, away from the window, but he wriggled below me.

Even from below me, he grabbed the other wine bottle and tossed it out the window, screaming, "God bless America!"

I covered his mouth, hearing more cursing from below. My instincts seemed unaware that I was incredibly drunk, so when I meant to shut the window with my foot, it veered off and brought the curtains crashing down on us instead. Clint stiffened under me, seemingly shocked. I stumbled out of the curtains and finally shut the window, catching a glimpse of the man pacing angrily up and down the alley.

I turned and Clint was crawling to the door, trailing the curtains and hanging bar behind him. The bar got caught on the door, and I heard Clint grunt from around the corner. I peeked around the door frame and saw Clint was sprawled in the hallway, seemingly unable to go any further, a curtain still wrapped around his shoulders. I lay down on top of him, my cheek pressed to his.

"I think cats are atheists, too," I said in way of comfort. Clint sneezed in response.

* * *

I sent Clint to put the curtains back while I found us some more food. We were suddenly ravenous again, and my head felt suddenly hallow and all floaty-like.

We met again in the basement and we feasted on granola bars and cooked Spam before falling back on the mattress, exhausted. I felt like one huge noodle, and ten minutes later, the Spam seemed like a bad idea. I could feel the alcohol start to dissipate from my body, but I still felt in danger of throwing it all up.

"Clint," I said, putting my hand on his face to get his attention. Instead of responding, he rolled away, literally rolled off the mattress and across the room until he bumped a wine crate and stopped. I got up on my elbows and stared. The room seemed to stretch suddenly and I thought maybe I wasn't as sober as I thought. I lay back on the mattress, watching the ceiling undulate. I vaguely heard Clint roll back and I felt him lay his head on my chest. He looked up suddenly and kissed me. I stiffened, shocked, but kissed him back almost automatically. He swung himself over me and I wriggled beneath him. Sex, I realized. He wanted to have sex. I frowned against his lips.

"You're drunk," I muttered, pointing my face away.

"So are you. We're both drunk. So, if we're both drunk, it's like it cancels out and we're both sober," Clint grinned. I stared, trying to make sense of his logic.

"No?" I finally said, still feeling confused. But Clint understood and rolled off me, taking his place next to me on the mattress instead. I looked at him, biting my lip, suddenly guilty.

"Sorry," I said, not really knowing why except that I was because I liked having sex with him, sex with him was great, I loved it, I loved his body, I loved us together.

"It's 'kay, 'Asha," he whispered, planting a wet kiss on my forehead with a sappy smile. I faced the ceiling and closed my eyes, suddenly very sleepy. We lay silent for a while.

"You're my scallop," I said suddenly, my eyes popping open at the genius of my own thought. Beside me, Clint laughed, sounding a little more like himself.

"Your _scallop_?" he repeated, amused. I nodded against his chest.

"Yeah, 'cause look, me, just me, I'm like a shell, you know? Like, that's what I'm like, when you're not there…" I trailed off, suddenly embarrassed. I turned towards the wall. Clint remained silent for a bit before placing his hand lightly on my waist. He turned me onto my back again.

"Go on."

"I'm like all empty, like a shell, right?" I started slowly. "And you, you're like the filling. What belongs there, you know? Like the scallop."

I expected him to laugh, but he seemed stunned into sudden sobriety. I looked at him and he was blank for a few moments before grinning.

"You are _so_ drunk," he pointed out, much like I had. I made an indignant noise and tried rolling onto my side but he stopped me with a chuckle. He nuzzled his nose under my ear and was silent. I stared at the ceiling thoughtfully.

"But shells and their scallops, they belong together, you know?" I said quietly, feeling braver. "Shells shouldn't leave their scallops… I shouldn't have left, I'm sorry, I was a coward, I was scared because I—I" I turned to look at him, emotion welling up inside me. But Clint was already gone, snoring quietly beside me. I deflated, the words dying in my throat. I kissed each of his shut eyelids slowly, feeling more despicable than ever.

* * *

I awoke some time later, the basement dark and my head ringing with a dull aching pain. I shivered and turned to see Clint turned away from me, wrapped up to his head in the thin blanket we shared. Or rather, were supposed to share. I couldn't help smiling at his prone figure, one of his arms sprawled wide and the other tucked beneath his pillow. The lick of untidy hair was impossible to ignore while he was face-down, and his sleepy face made him look more boyish that ever. I thought about wrestling the blanket away from him, but my throbbing head decided against it. It wasn't so bad, though. I wiggled closer to him to get under the covers. As if sensing my struggle, he shifted in his sleep, opening a small space beside him. I wedged myself in, immediately enveloped not only by the blanket but by his radiating body heat. It alarmed me at first, and I stopped to make sure he didn't have a fever before lying back down. I settled in, deciding losing the covers to him wasn't very bad at all.

* * *

I slept uneasily, the headache never quite leaving me, not even in unconsciousness. My eyes opened, but I didn't see the ceiling of the basement like I expected. I saw a dark stone ceiling, unexpected but undeniably familiar. I didn't think twice about it.

I closed my eyes again and lay still for a while, debating the pros and cons of getting up. As usual, the cons seemed to outweigh the pros, and I seriously considered laying there until someone came to get me or I died. Whichever came first. Anything was better than getting up to face hell. Anything.

But I wasn't going to die, and being found lying in bed would only get me a beating. I sat up slowly, swinging my thin legs off the thin cot. The room was small and dark, made of rough stone. The only source of light came slanting in through small slits in one wall, a miserable imitation of an actual window. The room was cold and contained four bunk beds, each pushed into a corner. And they were all empty. I was late. I was done for.

I stripped from my nightgown quickly, the morning chill coming through the slit windows raising bumps on my skin. I changed into a black long-sleeve, black jeans, and black sneakers, our usual attire. The shirt was a little too big for my skinny frame, making me look even smaller than I was. I ran out of the room, the laces of my untied sneakers flying.

The halls were dark and cold, the only light coming from dim lanterns placed at even intervals on the walls. Up ahead was the glow of the mess hall. Dark figures moved in front of it. I slowed to a fast walk as I approached.

"Tell me, Romanoff, are you important?" a voice asked me from the darkness in rapid Russian. I stopped just inside the circle of light coming from inside the mess hall. Inside, I could see rows and rows of tables filled with girls, each table consisting of a different age, from seven to eighteen. Their quiet whisperings created a dull hum, barely audible over the clinking of plates as they ate.

"Well?"

"Important, ma'am?" I answered, my voice thin and high. She stepped from the darkness, a tall, imposing woman with dark hair and dark eyes, and dark soul, probably. Everyone called her Miss Superior. I didn't know her real name. She came toward me and slapped me with the back of her hand. A high pitched yelp escaped me.

She kneeled so as to be eye-level with me, and turned my chin roughly to face her. "Do you think, Romanoff, that you are so important that you can wake up at any hour you want and stroll into breakfast whenever you please? Should we change our schedules to accommodate you? Would you like that very much?"

I remained silent, my eyes expertly trained on a freckle Miss Superior had on the very middle of the bridge of her nose. It made it seem like I was looking at her eyes without actually doing so. Looking at her eyes made me feel like I was sinking. But not looking would certainly get me another smack across the face.

"You are very lucky, Romanoff, that you have bigger plans for today, or I'd have you scrubbing the halls with a toothbrush. Now get in there," she said, straightening and pushing me toward the entrance. I ran into the hall and to the left, towards the younger tables. I blinked rapidly, a trick I'd learned to keep from crying. I could feel a welt starting to form on the side of my face, but tears, those were suicide.

I grabbed a plate and shoveled food quickly onto it. I knew not much time was remaining for breakfast, but I needed my strength for today. No one greeted me when I sat down. In fact, the girls nearest me tensed, some even scooted away. I didn't care. I focused on eating, and eating only. Miss Superior was right. I had bigger plans today.

A bell was rung and everyone stood and began lining up routinely to drop off their dishes. I stuffed one more bite of bread into my mouth and joined my place in line. I didn't need much to fill up, thankfully. I dropped off my dish and followed the line out. A group of three fourteen-year-olds up ahead looked back at me and sneered. At our last group training session, I'd pinned one of them to the ground in front of everyone. The match was supposed to be a chance to "toughen" younger girls, but really it was just a chance to humiliate them. No one ever expected us to win. I was tiny, so I'd been matched with the thinnest of the girls, but she was still a good foot taller than me. But people often underestimated my speed, and I brought her down. And now she and all her friends hated me. But to me, they were just a few more names on an already very long list.

We were led toward the bathrooms, as usual. We each filed into a room with our own age to undress, which I thought was pointless, given we were thrust into a bathroom with everyone right after. I undressed, past the point of embarrassment anymore. Years of the same thing had made us all immune. When I was completely naked, I walked out into the shower room, which was already steaming. Hot showers were one of the few luxuries we were given. It was a single large room with numerous shower heads. Everyone showered together. No walls, no curtains, no privacy.

I slumped my tiny shoulders over my thin body as I made my way to an open showerhead near the back of the rapidly filling room. I ignored everyone. Everyone ignored me. The usual.

Soap had fallen into my eyes and I was trying to wash it out when I felt myself pushed suddenly into the cold tile of the room's walls. I opened my eyes instinctively, but the sting made me shut them again quickly. I was again pushed, making me lose my balance and fall. I rubbed the soap from my eyes desperately and saw three figures towering over me. The three fourteen-year-olds from before, all of them thin and stark naked.

"Not so tough now, huh, Romanoff?" one of them said, the one I'd beat.

"I can take you down with my eyes closed!" I sneered valiantly. She reached down and slapped me, her wet skin stinging awfully on my already welted cheek. I tried to regain my feet but slipped on the wet tile. Around us, girls looked but then turned away guiltily, no one saying a word or interfering. All at once, I saw the three girls all draw back their legs and then swing them toward me. Two slipped off me harmlessly, but one caught me on the nose and snapped my head back against the tile. My entire head seemed to reverberate, disorienting me with a flashing pain. They kicked again, one catching me in the stomach and the other in the back with terrible stings and leaving me breathless. I wasn't entirely sure how long it lasted, except that the stinging pains kept coming one after another until the bathroom started to empty, our time to shower ending. The showerheads began to flicker off, leaving only uneven dripping. And finally, there was a reprieve in the pain. I opened my eyes to find myself alone in the shower room, my body already starting to bruise.

"I would think, and tell me if I'm wrong but, I would think, today of all days, you might be a little more… _focused_, Romanoff," Miss Superior hissed when I ran into the training room late, my hair still wet on my back.

"You are right, ma'am," I whispered. The training room was a large circular room where we trained for everything from combat to shooting, given the day. The trainer for my age group, known only as Miss Z, stood behind Miss Superior. She was strict, but nowhere near being as cruel as other trainers.

"Then please explain why you have been late on two different occasions today?"

I held my hands behind my back, making my bruised shoulders ache. My mind raced for a lie that wouldn't get me such a bad beating. But a millisecond of hesitation was all Miss Superior needed to tell that I was lying.

"The truth, if you please, Romanoff. Unlike you, I haven't time to waste."

I still hesitated. Snitching was the highest shame, the most sacred rule every single girl on base wordlessly agreed not to break. I gulped. I was already a pariah for my prodigious skill. What difference did it make?

"Alkaev, Krupin, and Bisset hit me in the bathroom, ma'am."

This didn't seem to be what Miss Superior expected. She raised an eyebrow. "That is a serious accusation, Romanoff. Why would Alkaev, Krupin, and Bisset do that?"

I raised my shirt to show her the dark purple already showing on my side. "Bisset hates me for beating her at our last group training, ma'am." Despite my best efforts, my lip trembled. That, more than anything, seemed to upset Miss Superior. She bore down upon me, again taking my chin.

"Someone will always hate you, Romanoff. Are you going to cry every time someone does?"

I locked my jaw to stop the trembling and balled my tiny fists. "They're fourteen!" I said, louder than I had intended. I controlled myself before adding as a tiny whisper, "I'm only seven, ma'am."

I don't know why I said it. I don't know what I expected. A word of consolation? A promise of justice? A hug?

Miss Superior let go of my chin and straightened. "Then it's time you grew up." She walked around me and left.

Miss Z didn't waste any time on hugs either. She pretended as if the episode hadn't just happened and got straight to business, motioning me toward a table. I approached, looking at my feet.

"Do you know what this is, Romanoff?"

I looked up and felt like rolling my eyes if I didn't know I'd get whipped for it. "A gun, ma'am," I told her. Any seven year old boy in the world could tell her that. Then again, I wasn't a boy and this wasn't something I'd learned from a video game. She set it down and moved on, showing me several more guns, a few knives, a couple of poisonous darts, and a single pill.

"Do you know what this is?" she repeated for the millionth time, holding up the tiny orange capsule.

"Instant death, ma'am. I'm to take it only if I'm compromised," I recited. She set it down, satisfied.

"Well, you know what all of these are. And I've seen you use them all well enough in training. Pick the weapons you are most comfortable with."

I didn't hesitate. I took the smallest of the guns, the one that fit in my tiny hand most comfortably, two knives, all the darts, and of course, the pill. Miss Z nodded.

"Go get ready in the launch room. A taxi will pick you up at seven. You will find your way back on your own…" she paused. I looked up at her. "Godspeed, Romanoff."

_Godspeed_, _may God cause you to succeed_. I bit back a snort. If God cared about me at all, I'd be killed tonight and never come back. But God had never favored me. I knew that now.

I dressed in our usual black attire, the only difference being the weapons strapped to my body underneath it all. I put on my black jacket, and carefully placed the pill in the tiny pocket on the inside lining specifically for it.

I went to lunch all geared up. Usually, people would wish an initiate good luck on her first mission when they saw her geared. There was always the underlying thought that they might never be seen again. No one wished me good luck.

I ate and went back to the launch room. At seven, my taxi arrived and I boarded it wordlessly, balling my fists to keep my hands from shaking. I was dropped off outside a large house and I was alone. I took a breath to calm down and started without thinking, following each step outlined for me as I had memorized them. Everything was too easy. Left, right, left, left. Tree, roof, window, vents. Right, right, left. I felt heavier than usual with all the weapons strapped to me. But the weight kept me moving. Stopping made me feel like they would start dragging me down to drown.

I didn't know his name. I didn't know why he was given this sentence. I didn't know if he had a job or a family or a dog he really liked. All I knew was his face and all I was told was that he was a bad man. I crept into his room silently, and he was right where I was told he would be. He lay sleeping silently in a ridiculously large bed that seemed to force me to remember the soreness in my back thanks to my thin cot. Across the room, a large ornate mirror faced me. I looked at it, momentarily distracted. I couldn't see much, only dark shadows. But my white face stood out like a light bulb in the darkness. I was tiny in the jacket, my legs nothing more than toothpicks. My dark red curls lay wildly on my shoulders. And my face was a pale ghost, my enormous green eyes overpowering every other feature and making my proportions seem slightly off. I was just a tiny little kid. A tiny little kid with a gun in her tiny white hand. It looked odd, out of place, unnatural. I'd held it plenty of times, but this time, it was heavier. It weighed me down with responsibility, seeming to ask if I would really go through with this. Would I? I could leave now. Disappear. I looked at my reflection, seeming to ask the girl in the mirror if it was possible. I saw myself grimace. No, I'd be found. I'd be found and dragged back and punished. I looked away from the mirror. There was no turning back.

I sneaked to the other side of the bed, feeling my face get hot. The man slept on, peaceful, completely unaware. I extended my arm, aiming for his ear. I faltered. This wasn't a video game. This wasn't practice. This wasn't training with a dummy. This was reality and he was a real, living, breathing person with maybe a job, and maybe a family, and maybe a dog he really liked. I couldn't do this. I couldn't. The gun seemed to grow heavier and heavier, bent on lowering my arm. I blinked rapidly. One deep breath. Two deep breaths. Three deep breaths. I held in the last breath to steady myself and closed my eyes.

The shot echoed louder than anything I'd ever heard before, shaking every bit of my tiny body to its very core.

* * *

I gasped, sitting up and causing Clint's arm to fly off me and hit the ground. My heart raced, my breath caught, and it wasn't even two seconds before the tears erupted, raw and unstoppable, and my chest heaved with sobs that seemed to stretch my ribs to their breaking point. My hands shook, one feeling heavy as if it still held that gun, and my entire body aching as if I'd been beaten in the bathroom only yesterday. Clint was startled awake when his arm slapped the ground, and he jumped awake, alarmed. He pulled a gun I hadn't even known he'd been hiding from his calf strap, half-covered me with one arm and scanned our surroundings with the gun outstretched in the other. It took him a moment to realize we were alone before he let the gun drop and turned to me.

"What is it? What is it?" he begged me, pushing back my hair from my sweaty forehead and bringing me to him as best as he could with his wounds. His arms around me, more than anything, made me feel like being taped back together. I tried to catch my breath, but ragged hiccups kept jerking out of me.

"My—my first, my first, my first!" I yelled, my voice screeching awfully. He shook his head, confused.

"Your first what? What is it? Tasha, Tasha, please!" He began rocking me, holding my head to his chest.

"My first—my first k-kill," I gasped, hot tears making my face sticky. He seemed to sag under the weight of understanding. Of course he understood. He knew. He had experienced it too.

"Oh, Tasha," he sighed, tightening his grip. We were silent for a long time except for my raspy breathing.

"How old were you?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. Clint continued combing through my hair with his hands. He didn't need to ask what I was talking about.

"Sixteen. Special circumstance. It was just supposed to be recon. There were three of us and our supervisor. We were given away and our supervisor was attacked. So I took her weapon and defended us. Three dead. I didn't even think about it," he said tonelessly. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine sixteen-year-old Clint, a lankier version of the 20-year-old I'd first met, taking up responsibility without being asked, to defend his group. It wasn't hard. Of course he would.

"I was seven."

I felt his muscles tense around me as a fresh wave of sobs overtook me. "Oh, Clint, I was seven. Just seven. And there was blood. So much blood. They never tell you about how much blood there's gonna be. It was everywhere!" I clenched my fists in my hair, trying desperately to see something else, anything else, except all the blood in my memory. In his hair, on his pillows, on the thick plush comforters, dripping from his ear onto the glistening hardwood floors.

"It's okay, it's okay, it's over. You're here now, and you don't have to go back, okay? You never have to go back. You can be here with me. We'll stay here. You can stay here with me, okay?" he said in a rush, tilting my face to look at him with careful hands.

"You won't make me go back?" I asked shakily, a shadow of my seven-year-old voice, thin and high. A childish question born from a childish fear I thought I'd forgotten.

"No! No, never!" he said, kissing my forehead forcefully. "Never, you hear me? You're staying here."

He lay me back down gently, cradling my head with one arm and draping the other across my body. I shivered even within his sphere of warmth. I wasn't shivering from the cold. We lay still and silent for a long time, Clint's hand never pausing in its repetitive route through my hair. I would be still for a time, and then another shiver would crawl up my spine, from the small of my back to my shoulders, and Clint would know I was still awake. I didn't need to look at him to know he was frowning.

He started talking suddenly, his voice a quiet murmur in my ear. "Did I ever tell you about the time I punched a shark?"

I wiggled a little to look up at him and shook my head. He grinned, pushing back my hair. "Well… it all started with hardcore deep-sea fishing…"

He talked quietly, but with animation in his voice, and told me stories of his youth. Days that were important to him, silly things he had thought about as a kid, stupid decisions of his adolescence that made good stories years later. He talked and talked, always brushing my hair back, until finally, I drifted back off to sleep.

* * *

I slept calmly but it seemed to me a very short time when I woke up. I opened my eyes slowly, warily, afraid of what I might see. To my relief, I saw the familiar brick wall of the wine cellar. I blinked slowly, enjoying a gentle stroking of my hair. I looked up and saw Clint sitting up against the wall, my hair fanned out next to him. He stroked it gently, piece by piece, his eyes a bit vacant but a small smile pulling his mouth.

"Clint?"

He jumped, seeming to snap from his reverie, a lock of my hair still in his hand. He dropped it suddenly, offering me a sheepish smile.

"Uh, good morning. You, uh, you have soft hair," he said lamely, refusing to meet my eyes. I looked down, also feeling sheepish for no apparent reason.

"Thank you." I stretched slowly as I began to sit up. "Why are you up so early?"

"Oh, well, you had a rough night, so I went to get us breakfast."

I turned and noticed for the first time the small napkin set out in front of Clint with two cups of coffee and two breakfast sandwiches lying on little coffee shop bags.

"This one's yours," he said, handing one of the large cups to me. I sniffed it hesitantly; I was picky about coffee. "Oh, don't insult me," Clint said when he noticed. "I know your coffee order, I'm not an imbecile. Cappuccino with two shots of espresso. And you like to sprinkle vanilla powder on top when you think no one's looking."

I looked at him, wide-eyed, as the delicious smell of vanilla wafted up from my coffee. We'd gotten coffee together plenty of times, and of course I knew _his_ order. Black, but drowned in sugar. Seven packets, to be exact. I'd just never really considered that he'd been paying attention, too.

I took a sip, and it was perfect. I smiled slowly. "Thank you, Clint." He surprised me by leaning over and kissing my temple gently.

We ate quietly, both our hangovers keeping us silent and slow. I caught Clint giving me wary looks various times before he finally asked, "How are you feeling?"

I took a slow, deliberate sip of coffee before replying. "Fine."

"Just fine?"

"Just fine." I finished my sandwich, rolled up the wrapper to throw away, and slowly lay on my side with my head on Clint's lap. Partially to be close to him, but mostly to appease him into silence. It didn't work.

"You were really upset last night…" he began cautiously. I blinked slowly. "Would more vanilla in your coffee make you talk? Because I stole the dispenser, just in case," he continued, pulling what looked like a salt shaker from his coat pocket. Instead of salt, however, it was labeled "vanilla" and had white powder inside. I couldn't help grinning. I sat up and Clint offered it to me with his most boyish smile. I closed my hand around his, slipping the makeshift vanilla shaker out from between them and letting my fingers intertwine with his. His eyes darted from our hands to my face, obviously surprised and a bit confused. I wasn't usually big on displays of affection. But I needed his touch to keep me from the nightmares if he wanted me to talk about them.

"The past… never stops haunting me. I used to think I'd forgotten, but… well, I guess not. I don't forget anything. I remember when I was a girl. I remember all the faces of people I've met. I remember every person I've killed." I put my head back on his lap, and he started playing with my hair automatically.

"When did they start? The nightmares?" he asked tentatively. I looked at him, debating on how much to tell him. He looked back at me with clear eyes, open and accepting. I knew he would believe whatever and however much I told him. He wouldn't push. Of course he wouldn't. But I knew he, more than anyone, deserved the truth. I closed my eyes.

"When I left you."

There was silence. I kept my eyes closed. I felt only the continued stroking of my hair. He cleared his throat, and I chanced to look at him through my lashes. He wasn't looking at me, but his eyes were troubled. His mouth opened, as if on the edge of speech, but closed it again with a sigh.

"I know I've asked a million times, but I know I'll ask a thousand more if I have to. I can't help it…" he paused. "_Why_ did you leave?"

He finally moved to meet my eyes, but I looked away. I thought of last night and wondered how much he remembered. Obviously not much. I bit my lip, guilty that I'd only been capable of telling him while I was in a drunken stupor and he was passed out on my shoulder.

"I was scared because…" I cleared my throat and forced my eyes to meet his. "Because I care about you. Everywhere I'd ever been in my life, I'd never cared about anyone. I never had to."

I sat up, my hair pulling from between his fingers. I looked blankly at the brick walls, feeling the weight of Clint's gaze on my back.

"And then… and then _you_ show up. You show up and whisk me away from the only life I'd ever known because somehow, you made me trust you in seconds. _Seconds_! And you made me care and I wasn't used to caring and it was like being twice as heavy as normal because I had to worry me _and_ you now and I didn't know how to deal with it because suddenly there was no me, there was only you, only you mattered, you were what I had to protect and take care of, and I was _scared_."

The words flowed out of me in an unbroken train, only allowing me to catch my breath when it was over. I put my head in my hands, my blonde mane falling over my face like a curtain. I felt Clint come over to sit by me, his warm hand covering the small of my back gently. He pushed back some of my hair behind my ear and laid his head on my shoulder.

"You know I forgive you, right?" he said into the silence. I didn't look up. "I was so… _pissed off_ at first. You…" he gave an breathy laugh, "you're a real blow to the ego, Natasha Romanoff… But the—the _moment_ I saw you, I forgave you. I had to, I—"

I looked up and pressed my mouth to his hungrily, swallowing the remainder of his words, breathing in his forgiveness, wishing that would make it any easier to forgive myself. He seemed shocked but responded instantly, his other hand framing my face. I pushed into him, my hands coming up to wind around him. He twisted his body to better face me but broke away suddenly, his eyes wide, a gasp escaping him. I looked at him, alarmed, his face reminding me horribly of all those times I'd seen him die in my nightmares. Clint twisted away from me, his hand grasping his side.

"Clint, what is it?" I looked down and saw red staining his shirt, spreading out under his hand. "Shit!"

I forced him to lay down and ripped open his shirt, revealing his bleeding bullet wound freshly opened. I sighed with relief, quickly moving to treat it. I'd half expected to find Clint's chest torn open in another nightmare.

I wiped away his blood and cleaned his wound again, ignoring the red stains on my hands. Clint remained silent, only staring at me. "Are you okay?" I asked when I finished patching him back up. He smiled up at me.

"I'm perfect. I did like this shirt, though," he said, looking down at the tattered remains of his torn shirt. I wiped my hands nervously.

"Sorry. You scared me."

He grinned wider. "Because you care about me." I rolled my eyes, getting to my feet. "Because I'm your scallop!" I whipped to look at him.

"You remember that?" I asked, my voice uncharacteristically high. He smiled crookedly.

"I wouldn't have allowed myself to forget _that_. I quite like drunk Tasha."

I turned and tried not to run from the basement, my face flaming. If only he knew.

* * *

I kept Clint resting for most of the next couple of weeks, much to his annoyance. I didn't let him exert himself much, and I never let him go out when I ran errands. He began to stick mostly upstairs, looking for ways to relieve his boredom. But he was weaker than he let on; I could tell. Going up the stairs winded him sometimes, though he pretended otherwise, and I would sometimes catch him clutching his wounded side when he thought I wasn't around to see. But whenever I asked if he was alright, he would puff out his chest and say he was fine.

After a while, I'd come upstairs too. The basement was dreary alone. And I didn't like to leave Clint by himself after he'd opened his wound again having an accident while skating on the hardwood hallways in his socks. He still refused to tell me exactly what had happened but I had a hunch he'd slipped down the stairs given by the amount of banging I'd heard.

I called base several times, mostly when Clint was asleep, to check in. They told me first thing our job here was done, but I didn't want to hurry Clint into another mission. I knew Clint would jump at the first opportunity, and that was the problem. This wasn't about taking care of himself. It was about devoting himself to his job, to taking care of others. Not thinking of the individual, but the whole. That was Clint. But I was me, and my responsibility was Clint. I could give less of a fuck about "the whole." But Clint thought differently and it was making him angsty.

* * *

"Tasha?" he said one afternoon, his tone giving away what he was going to say. He'd tried plenty of times already. I looked up from the book I'd been reading. We were in the same room he'd thrown the wine bottles from.

"Yes, Clint?"

"Do you want tacos? I feel like some tacos."

I raised an eyebrow. "Tacos? Clint, we're in the capital of Hungary, where are you gonna find tacos?"

Clint shrugged, coming over to lay next to me on the bed, letting his hand run lazily up and down my leg. I saw him eye me hungrily, but pretended I hadn't seen when he looked up to meet my eyes. We hadn't had sex in three weeks. The first time he'd tried, he ended up pulling a muscle in his back, so I'd kept him at bay, worrying he'd get hurt again. I'd never seen him in worse shape. But I knew his ego was hurting more than anything. I wish he knew I missed it as much as he did. His slightest touch made my pulse jump.

"Well, it won't be easy, but there's gotta be a taco joint somewhere. Bit of an adventure. Nice little look around the city."

"Clint, I—" I began, and he rolled his eyes at my tone.

"Ugh, Tasha, you're not my mom. Lighten up, I'm fine," he said testily, turning to sit on the edge of the bed.

"You're injured, Clint! I'm just worried ab—"

"Don't be, I'm perfectly okay!"

"You break a sweat coming up the stairs!"

He groaned. "That was one time, and it was weeks ago! I'm fine now! You're being selfish!"

"Selfish?" I gasped. "_Selfish_? I'm taking care of _you_! Selfish how?"

"Keeping me holed up here! Not doing our jobs. We should have been gone by now!"

"Well, no one planned on you getting shot!"

He stood and I did too, feeling irrationally enraged. How could he be mad? I was trying to take care of him! He couldn't take that away from me.

"Well, I did," he said, "and I'm fine, so why are we just wasting our time here? Wasting time, that's _selfish_. Hiding here, that's _selfish_. Selfishness isn't part of our manifesto."

Our manifesto. The set of beliefs agents were supposed to uphold. There he went again, caring more about the work he was supposed to be doing than himself, as the manifesto claimed. The whole above the individual.

"Yeah, well, taking care of you is part of mine!" I screamed angrily at him. He faltered, as if confused on what to throw back at me, but he suddenly jumped over the bed between us and rammed into me. I grunted, pushed back by his weight, my feet tripping over themselves as I tried to regain my balance. He took my face brusquely, continuing to push me until we slammed into the wall, and pressed his lips hungrily to mine. I responded instinctively, forgetting that this might very well injure him even more. My lips opened for his without hesitation, letting his tongue trace my mouth before meeting mine. He leaned down to hook his hands under my knees and pushed me up easily, as if to showcase his supposed restored strength. I wound my legs around his back and his hands slid down to cup my butt and press me to him.

My hands, previously busy with pulling his hair, slid down his back to pull up his shirt insistently. When it caught on his shoulders, I hugged myself to him so he could raise his arms and take it off. I gripped his strong shoulders hungrily, the muscle beneath rippling like waves. I trailed kisses from his mouth, down his neck, and onto his collarbone, leaving red smudges of my lipstick on his warm skin.

He wound one strong arm around me and had zero trouble lifting my thin v-neck from the hem. I lifted my arms, reluctant to remove them from his skin, while he tore the shirt off and flung it away. He pressed me with enough pressure to the wall to hold me while he ran his hands up to unhook my bra. I wiggled out of it and he let his hands rove over my breasts with an almost boyish amusement. His lips again found mine and he kissed me deeply, stealing my breath and making me dizzy.

My hands slid over his stomach to unbutton his jeans. I fumbled with it for a minute, pushing them down as far as I could reach. Clint whirled me around suddenly, making my head spin for a moment, and dropped me gracelessly on the bed. He bent over me to suck on one nipple and then the other. I groaned, holding his head there while his hands worked on my own jeans. When he'd gotten them far enough down, I kicked them off myself. I linked my arms around his neck as he straightened, pulling me up into a sitting position on the bed. My hands slid down to his hips and I pulled down his jeans and boxers at once. I got onto my knees, only my underwear left to clothe me, my lips finding his as my hand closed around his penis. I rubbed it quickly, not wasting any time with gentleness. We were both beyond the point of tenderness. We were rabid and we were powerful and we were hungry.

He kissed me with force now, groaning into my mouth, his strong arms around my back squeezing me to him. His force made me involuntarily squeeze his penis and he gasped, biting down on my shoulder. He dropped me back on the bed and began fumbling with a condom I wasn't entirely sure where he'd gotten while I pushed down my underwear. He pulled me up just as I kicked them off only to turn me around and bend me over the bed. I gripped the sheets, my heart beating in throat in anticipation. Clint placed one hand on my hip and the other crawled up my back into my hair, making me tremble. And he slammed into me. Without timidity or hesitation. I let out a startled scream, my back arching and somehow pushing him in further. My vision seemed to go out of focus for a moment while he pulled out and pushed back in again, up to his hilt. Again and again, in a rapid rocking motion. I moaned loudly as he bent over me, the hand that had been on my hip sliding under me to cup my breast. He groaned into my ear with each push, making me wetter with each passing breath. The hand Clint had in my hair tightened suddenly, pulling my head back. I moaned, biting my lip to keep from crying out. And still, I found I didn't mind. I only wanted him to pull harder, to push harder, to make me his harder.

His pace quickened as he straightened again, both his hands drawing back to my hips, pushing me harder onto him. My hands curled into claws around the sheets, desperate for something to anchor me. But there was nothing to hold me, and I was adrift on a sea of Clint, his breath loud in my ears and his scent leaving me in a daze. I looked down at the rumpled bed sheets, the thrumming in my ears getting louder and louder in time with my quickening pulse. I closed my eyes, fighting to catch my breath. I felt myself drowning in a deep, deep sea, fighting for breath, but for once, I wasn't scared. I knew I was making my way to the surface. Climbing. Two bodies rocking together into one single wave of motion. Climbing. His hands holding me anchored. Climbing. My breath caught like I was choking for one infinite moment before I exploded above the surface of the sea. I burst with ecstasy, like breathing the first gasp of air after drowning. My eyes popped open but I saw nothing. A spasm ran through my body, sending delicious little shivers to every last extremity of my body. Everything seemed too bright to look at for one blinding moment. I gasped desperately, my back arching and Clint catching me and straightening me up. He turned and sat on the edge of the bed, now holding me in his lap. I clutched at his hips to keep me steady while he continued to knock into me, now by thrusting his hips upward. I gasped with each push, one of my hands reaching up to wind in his hair as he groaned into my ear, bending to suck where my neck met my shoulder. Finally, I heard his breath catch, and a deep moan rumbled from deep within him. The hands on my hips fluttered before tightening, and he fell back on the bed limply, pulling me on top of him. Both our bodies lifted in time with our deep breaths. He let one of his hands trace across my soft belly, up over my breast and back down again as far as it could reach. The other continued resolutely gripping the inside of my left thigh.

"Ugh, I _missed_ that," he groaned, pushing away my hair and kissing my neck on the spots where he had already left marks. "I missed that," he whispered again, his drifting hand running down the middle of my body to the inside of my legs where he was still inside me. I moaned softly, my muscles tightening automatically around him.

"I think you just _fucked_ me," I whispered, studying the ceiling and trying not to shiver from his hand's constant dancing on my skin. He moved under me.

"What?"

"You just fucked me. You _fucked_ me," I said. He remained silent, but I could imagine his face, fresh with sex and twisted with confusion. "I mean, we've had sex plenty of times. I like to think you've even made love to me a few times, too. But this is the first time you've ever fucked me. Just bent me over like an animal and fucked the hell out of me."

He remained silent, thoughtful. "Sorry?" he finally said. I sat up delicately, and let him slide out of me as I stood. I turned and climbed back on the bed to straddle him, sitting on his hips. I laid down on him, stomach to stomach, and kissed him deeply, gratefully.

"No. Don't be. It was _hot_. You should fuck me more often," I whispered into his ear. Down below me, I felt his length pop up a bit and smiled against his lips. "One round at a time, though." He grinned too, bringing his arms up to lay his head on.

"Told you I was fine."

"You certainly are," I whispered, sliding teasingly over his still half-hard erection. His grin turned into more of a hungry grimace as he stretched up to pull me down into a kiss.

* * *

I extracted myself from his grip sometime later to take a shower, my body feeling much lighter. I waited until the water was scalding and the small bathroom was fogged up before entering myself. I washed each part of my body slowly, luxuriously, feeling like pampering myself. I wound my fingers through my hair and massaged my head for a good while before rinsing. When I finally got out, I took extra time to rub lotion onto each separate part of my body until I was soft and smooth everywhere. I untangled my hair without hurry before pinning it up in a messy bun atop my head. When I finally emerged from the bathroom, I felt brand-new. Squeaky clean and recently satisfied. I changed into clean clothes, an airy blouse and jean shorts, before going back to find Clint. I didn't find him upstairs so I made my way to the basement. When I entered, my bubble of bliss seemed to suddenly pop and deflate.

Clint was standing in the middle of the room, in jeans but still shirtless, holding our agent mobile phone to his ear. He was pacing in short circuits, saying "uh-huh" and "yeah" every so often, but the muscles in his back were tense, his shoulders tight with strain. I watched him with defeat. I knew this would come. I couldn't keep him here forever, nursing him back to health and having sex with him every other day now that he was better. That would have been too pleasant and I wasn't that lucky. He hung up the phone finally and threw it on the mattress. He seemed to notice for the first time that I was in a room. I expected anger, because he'd surely found out that I'd been putting off getting a new mission to keep him holed up here, but he smiled, coming over to kiss me again, this time sweeter and calmer.

"I have to go," he said plainly when we parted.

"I figured. Who did you call?" I asked, keeping my voice carefully even. Clint nuzzled himself into my hair just below my ear.

"No one. Coulson called me. Something's going down in New Mexico."

I sighed. "When do we leave?" I felt the hands Clint had on my back tighten. He pulled away to look at me.

"They, uh… Ah… They only want… _me_."

I stared at him, the words not quite making sense. "Only you?" I repeated, still not understanding.

Clint looked around, uncomfortable. "I don't know why. But they said they only required me. I have to leave before this time tomorrow."

I gulped, not being able to think of anything besides the injustice, because I'd only just gotten Clint back. Clint framed my face delicately with both his hands, pressing his lips softly to the tight line that my mouth had become. I closed my eyes, trying to remember the feeling. Because I wasn't lucky. I'd never been lucky. The first good thing to happen to me was being ripped away. I'd finally found my separate peace and it was being ripped away.

"I'll come back to you before you know it," he whispered. I locked my jaw and looked up at him, nodding resolutely.

"Right."

"Just… don't disappear on me again, okay?" His eyes met mine imploringly. I nodded again. "Promise? You promise? Promise me you won't disappear again!" he said, his voice climbing with urgency.

"I—I promise!" I replied quickly.

He pressed his lips to my forehead, his hand tangling in the hair at the nape of my neck. He didn't understand that I couldn't run anymore. It had cost me all I was to run the first time. And now that I'd had him back, I'd lost the fortitude to ever take myself away from him again. I hadn't the strength nor the will nor the desire. I was his entirely. It was a strange feeling, a beautiful wickedness. A blinding, incendiary, agonizing, but _beautiful_, kind of wicked.


End file.
